Watch out Seattle, here comes Zoox. Zoox is Amazon’s autonomous car startup. The Seattle Times recently reported that Amazon self-driving cars are coming to Seattle and will begin testing its self-driving car prototypes in the city in the coming months. But what happens when an Amazon self-driving car causes an accident that damages property, or severely injures or kills someone? 

Early Warning Signs:

Accidents caused by Amazon self-driving cars are expected, because self-driving vehicles are particularly bad at recognizing pedestrians and bikes. This reality was violently demonstrated in 2018 when a self-driving Uber vehicle struck and killed a pedestrian in Arizona during a test drive. Documents later released by the National Transportation Safety Board showed Uber had not programmed the car to anticipate jaywalkers. Last month, a video circulated widely on social media that showed a Tesla operating in still-under-development autopilot mode careening towards pedestrians blocks away from Amazon’s Seattle headquarters.

Who Is Responsible for the Accident? 

What happens when the technology fails? Or, what if one of these driverless cars has been involved in an auto accident? Should the person sitting in the driver’s seat be at-fault when they were not actually driving the car?  Is the owner of the driverless car strictly liable for the damage or injuries that it may cause others?  Possible answers to these novel questions were recently addressed in a law review article, Sue My Car Not Me: Products Liability and Accidents Involving Autonomous Vehicles.

Products Liability Vs. Driver Liability?

The Article suggests that when a driverless vehicle fails to function properly and causes an accident, then an injured party should be able to recover from the auto manufacturer in a claim for products liability. Yet, if the driver causes an accident because of his negligence, and the technology of the car did not contribute to the accident, then the injured party should be able to collect from the driver for any damage or injuries that occur.  Inevitably, this will likely lead to Washington enacting specific statutes that legislate fault and owner responsibility for driverless cars.  It goes without saying that this technology will also change the type of insurance that you will need to own or operate a driverless car.

Smoking Gun Evidence:

Electronically Stored Information (ESI) is a key component in these cases, because modern cars collect enormous amounts of data, which can be used to determine the fault of accidents, whether it’s human or machine driver error, or some other design flaw in the automobile itself. Experts in accident reconstruction can download the data to preserve it as evidence of negligence at trial. 

In these cases, the combination of video, car data indicating things as detailed as how long acceleration and brakes were applied, whether someone was in the driver’s seat or their hands were on the wheel, whether a door was open, and when impact occurred, and ESI from other devices.

Can Self-Driving Cars Be Hacked?

Developers of self-driving cars largely market the products based on their ability to drastically reduce accidents. However, this doesn’t mean that automobile accidents will be a thing of the past. Instead, hackers may cause crashes in the future.

In September 2016, Chinese security researchers uncovered vulnerabilities in Tesla’s security systems which allowed them to unlock car doors, open sunroofs, and reposition seats. Tesla resolved the issue ten days later with a security update. Though seemingly harmless now, it’s easy to imagine hackers causing cars to drive off the road or crash into other vehicles.

Conclusion:

Autonomous vehicles have the potential to revolutionize travel and highway safety. Within decades, autonomous vehicles will be widespread. The benefits to the marketplace, safety, productivity, and efficiency that autonomous vehicles will bring have the potential to be enormous. Because autonomous vehicles will be on the market within a decade and the cars will inevitably malfunction, legislatures and courts need to start developing liability schemes to ensure that the party who caused the accident bears the responsibility.