Thread: Autonomous Vehicles

This is the key issue for autonomous vehicles - as the law stands at the moment here, at least, the driver would be fully responsible, as there is no legal framework for autonomous vehicles. If there was no driver, as enthusiasts propose, who is legally responsible for the actions of the vehicle? As an owner, would you be prepared to accept this and potentially go to gaol for years? And if not the owner, would the seller accept this responsibility?

We are talking about criminal responsibility here, not civil liability - civil liability can be insured against, although insurance companies are going to want a lot of history before routinely accepting this.

Before autonomous vehicles can have a future, this question must be answered and legislation put in place to cover it.

Yeah, I'm wondering what they do in the States for this as there are fully autonomous ride share services in full swing - Waymo is the standout. Veratasium did a good video on them, although it was sponsored, but it does give some indication that it does work in certain scenarios and areas.

Be interesting to know how they get around all of this - clearly the rider isn't responsible and there's no driver, so the company themselves surely would be the ones in the firing line if someone was killed by one.

Originally Posted by Homestar

I'm not going to Tesla bash this one personally - accidents like this are always going to draw media attention despite the overall lower fatality rate that Tesla's have which is something the media generally don't look at.

There is this para relating to autonomous vehicles from your linked page:

As of July 26th, there are 48 crashes on the agency’s SCI list, 39 of which involved Tesla vehicles. Nineteen people, including drivers, passengers, pedestrians, other drivers, and motorcyclists, were killed in those Tesla crashes.

I had read of this some weeks back.

I know that's not many crashes when compared with the USA's overall figures.

However, there's also this report: Report: Nearly 400 crashes by ‘self-driving’ cars in the US | Automotive Industry News | Al Jazeera

I'll see if I can find the data but it's something like Teslas making up 1.2% of the vehicles on US roads but only account for 0.17% of the deaths. Most other vehicles have similar death rates to percentage of vehicles on the road give or take - Teslas are at the bottom of the list of Stats - not sure where I found this - will have a look, my numbers could be wrong.

Originally Posted by Homestar

Yeah, I'm wondering what they do in the States for this as there are fully autonomous ride share services in full swing - Waymo is the standout. Veratasium did a good video on them, although it was sponsored, but it does give some indication that it does work in certain scenarios and areas.

Be interesting to know how they get around all of this - clearly the rider isn't responsible and there's no driver, so the company themselves surely would be the ones in the firing line if someone was killed by one.

There are only a couple of states that allow this, and strictly on a trial basis. And only in two cities, Phoenix and San Francisco. And operating in a restricted and very well mapped area within each of these. A long way from gneral use.

However, this is the sort of operation that is needed to gather the data necessary to allow a legal environment where extension is possible. It is difficult to see how this sort of thing could be possibly run anywhere in Australia on a public road. There is a centre now established to do this sort of thing at Cudal, using the old airport there - surrounded by an imposing fence to keep stray animals (including humans) out.

I wonder how an autonomous vehicle would handle my wife as the passenger, who would be offering sage advice on directions, other road users and traffic in general.

Originally Posted by Saitch

I wonder how an autonomous vehicle would handle my wife as the passenger, who would be offering sage advice on directions, other road users and traffic in general.

Duly noted for future advantage.

Originally Posted by Saitch

I wonder how an autonomous vehicle would handle my wife as the passenger, who would be offering sage advice on directions, other road users and traffic in general.

Surely she offers this advice when thyme is of the essence?

DL