personal injury lawyers-it are going to have a field day with self-driving cars, as well it should, given the extreme likelihood of continuous death and mayhem from this not-yet-ready-for-prime-time technology.
the great thing about this from a liability lawyer’s standpoint is that almost all accidents nowadays are caused by the drivers and NOT by faulty or unsafe auto design or manufacturing. Therefore, today’s main liability targets have been the bad drivers and their insurance companies, IF THEY ARE INSURED.
With driverless cars, there’s no possibility that the drivers can be at fault since there aren’t any, and therefore there’s a 100% chance that the manufacturers are at fault, and the manufacturers have DEEP pockets, unlike individual drivers, even the ones WITH insurance.
Quite quickly, driverless car makers will be sued out of existence unless states absolve them of their liability, at which point it becomes open season on the innocents by driverless car manufactures. In point of fact, the liability waiver would actually have to occur at the Federal level because of cars sold in a state that has liability waivers driving across the border to another state that has no liability waivers.
They need to be.
When this technology CUTS a thousand fold the fatality rate per mile versus human drivers, then they have a leg to stand on.
Right now, expect that the driver less car is DEAD, and God help anybody who has money invested.