Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2023
Abstract
This article suggests that legislatures amend existing law to create a new legal category of "computer driver" to allow a plaintiff to make a negligence claim against an automated vehicle manufacturer for loss proximately caused by any negligent driving behavior exhibited by the driving automation systems which it produced. Creating this new legal category will allow a status quo approach to attribution and allocation of liability, including permitting defendants to take advantage of contributory negligence and comparative fault rules. Creation of the category also allows for continued functioning of the structure of our existing liability laws and regulations for motor vehicles in which the federal government regulates automotive equipment, and the state governments regulate drivers, driving, licensing and registration.
The law often needs a statute to address changes in technology for which existing law understandably fails to provide answers. Creating the category of "computer driver" avoids the conceptual difficulties caused by an uncertain boundary between regulation of equipment and regulation of drivers the very disruptive situation created by the new technologies of driving automation in which computer drivers replace human drivers. It prevents shifting regulatory responsibility for liability attribution to the federal government and away from state governments when the human driver is replaced by equipment in the form of certain sophisticated driving automation systems which we capture with the legal fiction of a "computer driver."
Recommended Citation
William H. Widen and Philip Koopman, Winning the Imitation Game: Setting Safety Expectations for Automated Vehicles, 25 Minn. J.L. Sci. & Tech, 113 (2023).