Not long ago self-driving cars seemed like science fiction. But Google is now operating so-called autonomous cars (photo) in California and Nevada, and last week at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, both Toyota and Audi unveiled prototypes for self-driving cars to sell to ordinary car buyers. (Google co-founder Sergey Brin said last year said he expects his company to have them ready for the general public within five years.) In a report backing self-driving cars, the consulting firm KPMG and the Center for Automotive Research recently predicted that driving is “on the brink of a new technological revolution”.
But, as the momentum for self-driving cars grows, one question is getting little attention: should they even be legal? And if they are, how will the laws of driving have to adapt? All of our rules about driving— from who pays for a speeding ticket to who is liable for a crash— are based on having a human behind the wheel. That is going to have to change.
There are some compelling reasons to support self-driving cars. Regular cars are inefficient: the average commuter spends 250 hours a year behind the wheel. They are dangerous. Car crashes are the leading cause of death for Americans from 4-34 and they cost some $300 billion a year. Google and other supporters believe that self-driven cars can make driving more efficient and safer by eliminating distracted driving and other human error. Google’s self-driving cars have cameras on the top to look around them and computers to do the driving. Their safety record is impressive so far. In the first three hundred thousand miles, Google reported that its cars had not had a single accident. Last August, one got into a minor fender-bender, but Google said it occurred while someone was manually driving it.
After heavy lobbying and campaign contributions, Google has persuaded California and Nevada to enact laws legalizing self-driven cars. The California law breezed through the state legislature— it passed 37-0 in the Senate and 74–2 in the Assembly— and other states could soon follow. The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which represents big car makers like GM and Toyota, opposed the California law, fearing it would make it too easy for car makers and individuals to modify cars to self-drive without the careful protections built in by Google.
That is a reasonable concern. If we are going to have self-driven cars, the technical specifications should be quite precise. Just because your neighbor Jeb is able to jerry-rig his car to drive itself using an old PC and some fishing tackle, that does not mean he should be allowed to.
As self-driven cars become more common, there will be a flood of new legal questions. If a self-driving car gets into an accident, the human who is “co-piloting” may not be fully at fault; he may even be an injured party. Whom should someone hit by a self-driving car be able to sue? The human in the self-driving car or the car’s manufacturer? New laws will have to be written to sort all of this out.
How involved— and how careful— are we going to expect the human “co-pilot” to be? As a Stanford Law School report asks: “Must the ‘drivers’ remain vigilant, their hands on the wheel and their eyes on the road? If not, what are they allowed to do inside or outside, the vehicle?” Can the human in the car drink? Text message? Read a book?" Not surprisingly, the insurance industry is particularly concerned— and would like things to move slow. Insurance companies say all of the rules of car insurance may need to be rewritten, with less of the liability put on those operating cars and more on those who manufacture them.
At the signing ceremony for California’s self-driving car law, Jerry Brown was asked who is responsible when a self-driving car runs a red light. He answered: “I don’t know— whoever owns the car, I would think. But we will work that out. That will be the easiest thing to work out.” Google’s Brin joked: “self-driving cars don’t run red lights.”
Neither answer is sufficient. Self-driving cars should be legal, and they are likely to start showing up faster and in greater numbers than people expect. But if that is the case, we need to start thinking about the legal questions now. Given the high stakes involved in putting self-guided, self-propelled, high speed vehicles on the road, “we will work that out” is not good enough.
Rico says that getting across the street in front of a self-driven car can't be any worse than crossing in front of the old folks driving in his neighborhood now... (But Rico's ladyfriend was hit by a 'self-driving' Mercedes; unfortunately, it wasn't a real one, just one without a driver in it.)
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