[quote=livinincali]
I think the owner of the autonomous vehicle would be the one to bear the cost. I don’t see any new laws where autonomous cars will be able to forgo getting insurance. Auto insurance is required by law in most states. [/quote]
Yeah, and I bet the insurance industry plans on keeping it that way. 🙂
I’m thinking that autonomous vehicles will stoke a new type of no-fault insurance. If the vehicle is truly driverless, then the owner can’t totally be at fault. Vehicle producers surely won’t want to be held responsible. What does that leave?
[quote=svelte]
I’m thinking that autonomous vehicles will stoke a new type of no-fault insurance. If the vehicle is truly driverless, then the owner can’t totally be at fault. Vehicle producers surely won’t want to be held responsible. What does that leave?[/quote]
I suppose it’s possible but I think the courts will probably try to keep this as simple as possible. Think about something like the Firestone tire controversy with Ford’s back in the day. When those vehicles crashed because of a tire failure the auto insurance paid out those claims. It was the owner’s liability. After the fact people and insurance companies sued Firestone to recover losses from the tire failures. I think the same thing would happen here. If the software is found to be critically flawed in a particular way the maker of the software will be sued. If it’s a one off glitch then it will be the vehicle owners insurance that will just pay off the claim. Same as it would if you get in an accident because your tire randomly blew out.
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