Topic: Self Driving Cars and Liability - Volvo is on some sort of PR rampage of late!

[Noto]

http://www.popsci.com/volvo-on-self-driven-car-liability-i-volunteer

First, the warranty.  Now, accepting liability?  Good job, Volvo, if nothing else than for being the anti-VW

[mmret]

I assume this is only if the Volvo is determined to be at fault. So another car crashing into the Volvo with a drunk driver at the helm would not result in a payout from Volvo.

I wonder how it will react with the auto insurance industry though. Is Volvo now the insurer? I doubt it. More likely they are taking the "above and beyond" risk if you get sued for more than $1m. That is a pretty small risk in general.

Also what does accepting liability mean? Legally, is the plaintiff then able to sue Volvo as well as the "driver" of the car? Would damages be assessed on the basis of Volvo's net worth and not the drivers? etc etc. Lots of issues to be wrangled over.


That said it actually sort of makes sense in a way, both economically and from a fault determination perspective. Volvo has significant control over the "driving record" of its own cars, at least when they are  being operated autonomously. They also have tons of telemetry and can assess a more objective truth. Two autonomous cars crashing into each other in the future would prompt both automakers to work out why it happened and figure out a way to fix it, and nobody would really give a crap about the payout that has to be made which would be tiny in context of big OEM budgets.

There's probably going to be some fine print that says the car must have been driving autonomously for more than X seconds / not placed in a deliberately bad situation, example you got on the freeway in the wrong direction and pressed the self-driving button and hit a car 3 seconds later - that is not Volvo's fault.

Economically insuring a known driving AI with known, stable characteristics that never gets tired and never panics (at least not in the human senses of the word) is probably relatively straightforward once we get some data on it.

[Noto]

I wonder how it will react with the auto insurance industry though. Is Volvo now the insurer? I doubt it. More likely they are taking the "above and beyond" risk if you get sued for more than $1m. That is a pretty small risk in general.

Also what does accepting liability mean? Legally, is the plaintiff then able to sue Volvo as well as the "driver" of the car? Would damages be assessed on the basis of Volvo's net worth and not the drivers? etc etc. Lots of issues to be wrangled over.

I think you misunderstand the idea of liability on a manufacturer here.

Taking a step back, there has been much debate over who would be responsible in the event of a collision when a self-driven car is involved.  Most manufacturers have denied all liability, suggesting that drivers are still in some way responsible for the control of the car to the complete exclusion of all manufacturer's defects.  To do so would create a reverse onus on the Plaintiff to prove that there was, first, a defect in the car, before the manufacturer would be responsible for defending the action instead of just the owner/operator of the vehicle.

Insurance policies are not the same thing - it does not matter, per se, how much Volvo's policy would cover.  It is also not an umbrella policy.  Volvo is accepting that if any of its self-driven cars are involved in accidents, it will not claim that liability is statute barred subject to the Plaintiff having the regular onus to prove his/her/their case.

It's a complex way of saying "we will fight you in court rather than ignoring everything and lobbying for the government to legislate that manufacturers cannot be sued."  It's a very odd position to take, but definitely a great move from a PR perspective, and one that is unlikely to cost Volvo anything at all.

[johngenx]

If I'm going to be legally liable for the actions of my car, then I want to be in control of the car.  If someone wrote some code that causes my car to play bumper car, then I'm not keen on being liable.

When I'm a passenger in a cab or on the bus, am I liable for the bus if it's in a crash?  I know I don't own the bus, but, the actions of the bus were beyond my control.  Isn't it the same for a Google-self-driving car?

[tenpenny]

When I'm a passenger in a cab or on the bus, am I liable for the bus if it's in a crash?  I know I don't own the bus, but, the actions of the bus were beyond my control.  Isn't it the same for a Google-self-driving car?

I think that would depend on who owns the car.

Generally, I doubt that you own the taxi or bus that you ride in.


Sent from my Vic20 using Java Moose

[johngenx]

When I'm a passenger in a cab or on the bus, am I liable for the bus if it's in a crash? I know I don't own the bus, but, the actions of the bus were beyond my control.  Isn't it the same for a Google-self-driving car?

I think that would depend on who owns the car.

Generally, I doubt that you own the taxi or bus that you ride in.


Sent from my Vic20 using Java Moose

But if I can't control the actions of the Google-car, then I sure as hell don't want to be liable for them.

[tenpenny]

When I'm a passenger in a cab or on the bus, am I liable for the bus if it's in a crash? I know I don't own the bus, but, the actions of the bus were beyond my control.  Isn't it the same for a Google-self-driving car?

I think that would depend on who owns the car.

Generally, I doubt that you own the taxi or bus that you ride in.


Sent from my Vic20 using Java Moose

But if I can't control the actions of the Google-car, then I sure as hell don't want to be liable for them.

But you own it.  You made the decision to buy it, so you are responsible.




Sent from my Vic20 using Java Moose

[Noto]

When I'm a passenger in a cab or on the bus, am I liable for the bus if it's in a crash? I know I don't own the bus, but, the actions of the bus were beyond my control.  Isn't it the same for a Google-self-driving car?

I think that would depend on who owns the car.

Generally, I doubt that you own the taxi or bus that you ride in.

But if I can't control the actions of the Google-car, then I sure as hell don't want to be liable for them.

But you own it.  You made the decision to buy it, so you are responsible.

Sorry, tpl, but that's simply not true in any respect.  If an incident/malfunction/poor design is outside of your ability to change the outcome, then you cannot be held liable in full for it.  Sure, Volvo will only be added to claims (and will not necessarily indemnify the driver fully), but if someone's driving along just fine and the car auto-brakes hard for a random leaf, and said Volvo is rear-ended by another car travelling a relatively safe distance behind it, then it is a flaw in the design and some liability will fall on Volvo.  The driver, operating the vehicle normally and as described in the manual, cannot be said to have contributed to such a loss.