Self Driving Car, liability?

[griz]

By the same token, " millions of miles in an extremely complex urban environment with zero life-threatening injuries or fatalities" is also not a useful data point.  How many times in those million miles did the autopilot* kick out and default to the human driver?  That's analogous to a driver falling asleep, yet they don't count that.

For what it's worth, I'm looking forward to a true automated system where I can get in the back seat and sleep on the way home, but we're not there.  I think the tipping point will not be when the system is better than an average driver.  The average is skewed by drunks, texters, nearly blind, and just plain bad drivers.  It needs to be better than a sober, alert, skilled driver.  and I wouldn't be surprised if it's better than halfway there.

[cordex]

The question of “who is liable for a collision of a full self driving vehicle” is likely to be: the insurance company of the owner of the vehicle whether that owner is individual or commercial. I’m guessing that the insurance companies will suss out the realities of which self driving vehicles are safer independent of and better than the developers of the technology themselves - much less the marketing wankers.

AZs notes on how the reported numbers may not tell the whole story are very relevant, but again insurance companies are going to figure that out quick. I bet rates for a given make and model would have to regularly adjust as updates are made to the driving algorithm.

Another interesting question will be who is guilty of non-accident traffic violations?  Again it will probably be the owner of the vehicle, but that may result in some mildly interesting court cases where someone gets a ticket because their robocar ran a red light.

Maybe by that time we will already own nothing and be happy.

[Cliffh]

I'd like to see the ruling on an AV running a red light.  Is the owner/"driver" really responsible if he's asleep in the back seat?

I wouldn't mind getting an extra 1/2 hour sleep on the way in to work.  Having a reliable AV wouldn't be bad on those long drives to visit family.  It'd cut down on my driving time - we could crash for a few hours while the car continued driving on.   

I wonder if the AV's come standard with built in alarm clocks?

[Nick1911]

How long until self driving cars become so significantly better than human drivers that driving by hand will be outlawed?

[HankB]

How long until self driving cars become so significantly better than human drivers that driving by hand will be outlawed?

As soon as .gov requires that .gov can take over and remotely control the autopilot function.

[dogmush]

Another interesting question will be who is guilty of non-accident traffic violations?  Again it will probably be the owner of the vehicle, but that may result in some mildly interesting court cases where someone gets a ticket because their robocar ran a red light. .

I'd like to see the ruling on an AV running a red light.  Is the owner/"driver" really responsible if he's asleep in the back seat

At least in Tampa, if my truck runs a red light camera, I'm responsible no matter who was driving. It's not a moving violation, but rather a civil infraction held against the registered owner of the vehicle.

I suspect AVs would be treated like that.