Progress on insurance issues facing driverless cars

Another valuable step forward
towards the driverless cars
of the near future (See ‘Ditch
your driver’s licence!’ FTW
Jan 22 issue) has been taken
in the US.
In this case, US vehicle
safety regulators have said the
artificial intelligence system
piloting a self-driving Google
car could be considered the
driver under federal law, a
major step toward ultimately
winning approval for
autonomous vehicles on the
roads.
This, according to US press
reports, followed a letter sent
in November from Google,
outlining their proposed
design for a self-driving
car that has “no need for a
human driver” to the National
Highway Traffic Safety
Administration (NHTSA).
And last week NHTSA
posted its letter of reply to
Google on its website. It said:
“NHTSA will interpret ‘driver’
in the context of Google’s
described motor vehicle design
as referring to the (self-driving
system), and not to any of the
vehicle occupants”.
“We agree with Google, its
(self-driving car) will not have
a ‘driver’ in the traditional
sense that vehicles have had
drivers during the last more
than one hundred years.”
This, for example, would
help to make it much easier
for insurance companies to be
able to compile conditions to
cover such driverless cars in
the relatively near future – as
major vehicle manufacturers
and technology companies
such as Google race to develop
and sell vehicles that can drive
themselves at least part of the
time. This would possibly be
part of the answer to the tricky
question of insurance liability
– just who is responsible if a
driverless car crashes?
If the car’s computer is
the driver for legal purposes,
then it clears the way to
design vehicle systems that
communicate directly with the
vehicle’s artificial pilot.