Autonomous car liability called into question

Volvo pledges that it will accept full responsibility for any accidents caused by its driverless cars

Volvo’s announcement that it will accept full responsibility for any accidents caused by its driverless cars has brought several intriguing questions to light.

Despite many manufacturers planning to have fleets of autonomous cars on the roads by 2020, the legality of their introduction remains a complicated subject. The question of what will happen when automation is suspected of causing, as opposed to avoiding, an accident is still being widely debated.

Volvo’s pledge, made during a speech by its president Hakan Samuelsson in the US last month, is a bold move. So far only Google has made a similar claim. Ben Gardner, an expert in autonomous vehicle technology and regulation at law firm Pinsent Masons, said that Volvo is seeking legal clarity. “Volvo wants to remove the uncertainty of who would be responsible in the event of a crash,” he said. “At the moment it could be the manufacturer of the technology, the driver, or a maker of a car component.”

Clarity will help the driverless vehicle industry progress but, while Volvo’s commitment simplifies the process of establishing blame in the case of a crash, it doesn’t solve all the liability problems. It remains to be seen how Volvo will react in the event of an actual accident.

For example, if the vehicle crashes because a driver overrides the autopilot system and makes a bad decision – will Volvo accept the liability or blame the driver? Will its system track driver control and have an effective ‘black box’ to track what happens just before the accident? 

A recent Volvo case, where a driver using the ‘self-parking’ feature crashed into two people because it didn’t work as was expected, indicates the potential ambiguities. Maryanna Saenko, a research analyst who leads the Autonomous Systems 2.0 practice at Lux Research, said: “Volvo was quick to point out that the accident was the fault of the driver and their misunderstanding of the technology, which was correct in this instance, but there are foreseeable situations where the fault is not so clearly the driver’s.”

Equally, if a vehicle crashes because sensors malfunction – will Volvo accept the liability or seek to hold its suppliers responsible? As in the recent case with the Takata airbags recall, if a part of the larger system malfunctions, will a camera maker, for example, be as much at fault as the manufacturer?

While Volvo’s announcement is a step forward for the driverless car world, it doesn’t address these types of questions. Saenko said: “Unfortunately, we may not see these questions addressed until there is actually an accident.”

So what’s next for driverless cars? Will other manufacturers follow suit with similar announcements? “It’s a question of these brands being willing to stand behind their products and maintaining trust and loyalty among their customer base,” said Saenko.