Injury cases are common because oo auto accidents. Will Google change all that? Google, one of today’s most innovative companies seems to have a never ending line up of great ideas. One of these is its autonomous vehicle which literally drives itself. A story in The Atlantic, reports that the vehicle has never gotten a ticket, but if they do google want its corporate person to get the ticket.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/05/googles-self-driving-cars-have-never-gotten-a-ticket/371172/

That is all very good, but who will be responsible for the inevitable car accidents that will happen. Will Google be named as a defendant along side the human “driver”, or will the human be left out of the equation. When an owner of a Google vehicle is struck by another person and sues, will Google be involved if the defendant raises the issue of comparative fault? Will the owner’s auto insurance defend Google?  Will owners even need liability insurance? Will Google carry auto insurance on every vehicle it sells for the rest of the time the vehicle is on the road?  If so will Google maintain only the minimum liability limits?  Will it carry or be required to carry uninsured motorist coverage or underinsured motorist coverage?

These are just a few of the thorny questions that jump to mind, but many more complex questions must be answered before autonomous vehicles can be allowed on the public streets for mass consumption. Google is still working on its self driving masterpiece, but even if the product was ready today, the law and the insurance market will have lots of adapting to do before our legal system and insurance system can accommodate an autonomous vehicle. These adaptations will have to be well though out and applied across our country so that these vehicles can travel from one State to the next just as existing vehicle do today.

As an advocate for auto safety I think Google’s autonomous vehicle hold really promise for reducing injuries and deaths, but common everyday vehicle accidents can’t turn into major product liability cases.  Part of the justice provided by the insurance and legal system is an ordered, cost effective system of resolving claims.  Most auto injury claims are resolved through settlement either pre-suit or post suit and a small portion of claims that can’t be resolved go to trial. This process can take time, but in most car injury cases there are not major corporations who have a stake in defending a product or their image.  The system could be severally undermined if individuals harmed in automobile collisions and defendants accused of causing the harm have to bring in a major corporation into the case.  If this comes to pass there is a real risk that resolving claims would become more complex, more costly and take longer.

Many parties have an interest or stake in the liability system in the United States, including the driving public, insurance companies, courts, lawyers, medical providers, businesses and government. If the autonomous car becomes a reality careful planning will be needed to insure that the benefits gained don’t outweigh the harm caused. Given the United Stated multi-layered legal system of Federal, State and local laws, and the unknown impact on the interested parties it is likely that the autonomous car’s legal future will be bumpy.

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