Self-Driving Vehicles: Who Gets the Blame if Someone Gets Hurt?

How far away are we from having remotely driven vehicles on our roads? Government plans could well see self-driving vehicles on public roads by 2025, according to the Government’s own website. The technology is already in use on farms and in warehouses. In fact, there could be some cars, coaches and lorries with self-drive features on motorways as early as this year.

So who will be responsible if someone is injured as a result of a self-driven vehicle? When a car is driven by a human being, it’s usually fairly straightforward to prove whether or not the driver was at fault. With self-drive cars it could be a lot more complicated, with the injured person having to show exactly what went wrong with the remote drive system in order to be able to claim compensation. Because of this APIL, the non-profit Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, is calling for the law to be updated so that if a crash is caused by a fault with the technology, the vehicle’s insurer will be automatically responsible for paying compensation.  Once the claim is settled the insurer will be able to make a claim against the vehicle manufacturer, or the manufacturer of the faulty component, and get back the money it has paid to the injured person.

Most injured people don’t have the resources or technical know-how to get into complex arguments about system failures. If APIL’s recommendation is adopted, the injured person will quickly be able to access rehabilitation and get their life back on track, leaving the well resourced insurance companies to establish what went wrong and whose fault it was.

The contents of this post do not constitute legal advice and are provided for general information purposes only.