Driveless vehicle and civil liability: an incoming legal issue?

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze, from a legal point of view, the changes that might occur in the field of civil liability with the arrival in the automobile market of a driving assistance technology that, in its maximum development, allows a genuine circulation of intelligent vehicles without a human driver. The implications of this change are profound and raise complex issues of ethical, economic and legal nature.

After a brief review of its history throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the paper analyzes, firstly, the current legal civil liability regime referred to motor vehicles in Spain. By doing so, we intent to place the reader in the legal starting point necessary to be able to understand possible future changes.

Subsequently, we analyze whether such a legal regime could continue operating in the case of vehicles that include automation systems, whether they are simply driving assistance systems or, on a scale of sophistication, genuine intelligent vehicles in which the old figure of the driver moves to be a mere passenger of a driveless vehicle. In addition, we emphasized the fact that the «reality» of the driveless car on the market will depend to a large extent on the response given by regulators and, in general, the Law.

The response of the legislator will of course take into account the advantages and disadvantages of the implementation of these vehicles, and it will undoubtedly have an important economic impact in the industry. It has been considered appropriate to highlight the manufacturer's liability regime, which is practically homogeneous in the European Union, due to the special relevance that said regime might reach if the civil liability of the driver is transferred to the manufacturer of the vehicle in the future.

We also call the attention to some responses that are taking place in other countries and jurisdictions, without ever ignoring the greater or less importance that the insurance sector can or should have in its response to this imminent new technology in the automotive world.