Who’s at fault when a driverless car crashes and injures people? That’s one of many unanswered questions with the transition from our current system to one dominated by fully autonomous vehicles. Wisconsin Association for Justice attorney Scott Thompson says self-driving cars are no longer a cartoon dream of the far off future. Manufacturers like Audi, Volvo, Ford and BMW promise fully autonomous vehicles by 2020. But Thompson says just because you can take your hands off the steering wheel doesn’t mean you won’t have responsibility if the car is involved in a crash. At the same time Thompson says the car manufacturer and vehicle software manufacturer also may bear responsibility. “The question that really gets interesting is what happens if the code that underlies the program…what if there’s a problem there? In that circumstance you could imagine that a car accident could be caused simply by having too many zeroes or ones in the undrerlying program of an application,” Thompson told AM 1170s Between the Lines program. “Something that minor could cause a serious problem.” The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says autonomous vehicles could prevent 90 percent of vehicle crashes.
