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It is unclear how the existing insurance system will translate to a future where all liability is concentrated on the manufacturer. Currently major fatal accide

by abalone 10y ago

It is unclear how the existing insurance system will translate to a future where all liability is concentrated on the manufacturer. Currently major fatal accidents often result in bankruptcies and may even incur criminal charges. They are not fully covered by insurance. All precedent is that auto manufacturers are responsible for manufacturing defects that lead to injury or death, not the owner or driver. Even the term "operator of record" has new meaning in the fully autonomous era. Bottom line if software bugs cause injury it's the software writers that are responsible. You mention many problems with human drivers. But software has been known to have bugs too, and the world is an almost infinitely complex learning environment. It is most likely that the safer future will involve the intersection and mutual augmentation of these two control systems, not the swift replacement of one by the other. As is the case for example with aircraft.

maxerickson 10y ago
Currently major fatal accidents often result in bankruptcies and may even incur criminal charges. They are not fully covered by insurance. How often is the driver in those cases under insured? I also wonder how often criminal charges pop up for drivers that weren't being negligent.
- abalone 10y ago
  Even if fully insured, most policies have a limit under $100k/person. The really serious accidents result in millions of dollars in damages (especially when lawsuits are involved). What would have been isolated to a personal backruptcy is now concentrated on the autonomous auto manufacturer. As for criminal charges, the key question is whether a bad bug can constitute negligence. That will no doubt be tested in courts when lives have been lost.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    Even if fully insured, most policies have a limit under $100k/person. What does 'fully insured' mean here? A sensible approach is to have liability coverage sufficient to protect your assets. That might be a lot more coverage than the legal minimum, but a large personal umbrella policy might be hundreds of dollars a year. People go bankrupt because they skimp on insurance, not because it is onerously expensive.
    - abalone 10y ago
      > What does 'fully insured' mean here?... People go bankrupt because they skimp on insurance Not necessarily. Even "large" policies will not protect your assets from the worst cases where damages run into the millions of dollars, e.g. where you kill a family or hospitalize someone for months. You propose that everyone with coverage less than "sufficient to protect your assets" is guilty of being "under insured". But there is no amount of coverage you can pre-determine to protect your assets in all possible cases. Not unless you purchase a policy with no upper limit -- but those are rare in the auto insurance world. Thus, even if you have a "large" policy that falls on the high end of typical coverage limits, truly catastrophic cases often result in personal bankruptcies. Bankruptcy courts cap the payouts. There are no such caps on auto manufacturers responsible for accidents... unless they go bankrupt too.
      - maxerickson 10y ago
        I'm pretty skeptical that there are a large number of these huge claims. I tried looking for some info about it but it gets obscured by advertising for liability insurance. I would expect many of the largest settlements to involve negligence like drunk driving or excessive speed (a system might have the wrong speed for a stretch of road, but it mostly will have accurate speeds). Of course there are also ways that a driving system could be implemented negligently that don't apply to a human driver (but I sort of expect the licensing process to address that).
        abalone 10y ago
        The idea that a EULA will protect manufacturers from lawsuits over injury and death due to their error is complete hand wavy fantasy. No such precedent exists. You need only look up the average cost of a major hospitalization to gauge what the at-fault party is responsible for. They can run into the millions.[1] That's before we even get to tort damages awarded by a court for things like negligence (and you're certainly right that those can be even higher). [1] http://www.rslfunding.com/whats-the-average-car-accident-settlement/ http://www.rslfunding.com/whats-the-average-car-accident-set...

by abalone 10y ago

maxerickson 10y ago

Currently major fatal accidents often result in bankruptcies and may even incur criminal charges. They are not fully covered by insurance. How often is the driver in those cases under insured? I also wonder how often criminal charges pop up for drivers that weren't being negligent.

abalone 10y ago
Even if fully insured, most policies have a limit under $100k/person. The really serious accidents result in millions of dollars in damages (especially when lawsuits are involved). What would have been isolated to a personal backruptcy is now concentrated on the autonomous auto manufacturer. As for criminal charges, the key question is whether a bad bug can constitute negligence. That will no doubt be tested in courts when lives have been lost.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  Even if fully insured, most policies have a limit under $100k/person. What does 'fully insured' mean here? A sensible approach is to have liability coverage sufficient to protect your assets. That might be a lot more coverage than the legal minimum, but a large personal umbrella policy might be hundreds of dollars a year. People go bankrupt because they skimp on insurance, not because it is onerously expensive.
  - abalone 10y ago
    > What does 'fully insured' mean here?... People go bankrupt because they skimp on insurance Not necessarily. Even "large" policies will not protect your assets from the worst cases where damages run into the millions of dollars, e.g. where you kill a family or hospitalize someone for months. You propose that everyone with coverage less than "sufficient to protect your assets" is guilty of being "under insured". But there is no amount of coverage you can pre-determine to protect your assets in all possible cases. Not unless you purchase a policy with no upper limit -- but those are rare in the auto insurance world. Thus, even if you have a "large" policy that falls on the high end of typical coverage limits, truly catastrophic cases often result in personal bankruptcies. Bankruptcy courts cap the payouts. There are no such caps on auto manufacturers responsible for accidents... unless they go bankrupt too.
    - maxerickson 10y ago
      I'm pretty skeptical that there are a large number of these huge claims. I tried looking for some info about it but it gets obscured by advertising for liability insurance. I would expect many of the largest settlements to involve negligence like drunk driving or excessive speed (a system might have the wrong speed for a stretch of road, but it mostly will have accurate speeds). Of course there are also ways that a driving system could be implemented negligently that don't apply to a human driver (but I sort of expect the licensing process to address that).
      - abalone 10y ago
        The idea that a EULA will protect manufacturers from lawsuits over injury and death due to their error is complete hand wavy fantasy. No such precedent exists. You need only look up the average cost of a major hospitalization to gauge what the at-fault party is responsible for. They can run into the millions.[1] That's before we even get to tort damages awarded by a court for things like negligence (and you're certainly right that those can be even higher). [1] http://www.rslfunding.com/whats-the-average-car-accident-settlement/ http://www.rslfunding.com/whats-the-average-car-accident-set...