Liability with Manufacturers

As automobile manufacturers get close to 2017 and partially driverless vehicles - meaning driverless on the highway, an upgrade, if you will, of cruise control - the automakers are sticking to their preferred legal opinion that laws that remain silent about hands or humans at the wheel will allow for autonomous vehicle travel on the roads. 

I hope that the same automakers realize that this is not the only possible legal opinion on the matter and that plenty of attorneys will be happy to argue otherwise whenever that first accident occurs on a road in a state without a driverless vehicle law. I hope they also realize that judges are conservative by nature, regardless of their individual political stripes.

I imagine the automakers and the Silicon Valley driverless folks are spending some money behind the scenes in Congress and perhaps at state legislatures. This is actually a pretty easy obstacle to surmount; passing laws is not that difficult. 

Clarity on this issue would be good for consumers and for the manufacturers. 

Speaking of risk

I like it when actual experts agree with my non-expert opinions. A Rocket News article quotes insurance, or risk management, expert Michael Stankord stating that most of the liability for driverless vehicles will sit squarely on the shoulders of the manufacturers. Though there will be far fewer crashes, the ones that occur will not render litigation a matter of deciding which human or which manufacturing defect caused the crash or malfunction, but perhaps which company was negligent in the design of the software or the physical components of the vehicle.

Another kind of risk - patents

Another article speaks of patent risk and compares the driverless vehicle race - with lots of software companies involved - to smartphone industry patent developments. So this is something I know absolutely nothing about, except that where risk is placed and the threat (and cost) of nuisance and substantive litigation have financially real and significant consequences. The author, David Marcus, sees value in setting standards for driverless technology, due to the safety ramifications of driverless travel, and he argues in favor of FRAND, which stands for fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.