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>Who gets sued when one of Elon's driverless trucks plows into a school bus? Surely not the "trucking company"? Actually, yes, the trucking company gets sued.

>Who gets sued when one of Elon's driverless trucks plows into a school bus? Surely not the "trucking company"? Actually, yes, the trucking company gets sued. This is pretty well established. If your Toyota malfunctions and you hit someone, you get sued. You may sue Toyota afterwards, but you're going to get sued first. This has literally happened before. It's not a what if. Toyota recalled thousands of trucks about 3 months ago because of a braking issue. I fail to see the difference between this and car insurance of the future. Even if insurance were the issue, it's fairly easy to solve; in the contract you sign to use an automated vehicle, you'd assume liability.

_red 8y ago
>If your Toyota malfunctions and you hit someone, you get sued. You may sue Toyota afterwards, but you're going to get sued first. You extrapolating that future markets will work exactly like the past, because "its a car". But its doubtful it will. The reason why the auto industry evolved the way it did (driver gets sued), is because 90+% of the time it is operator error. Look at another example. Kraft distributes 10M packages of poisoned cheese, what happens: (a) All the local grocery stores get sued? or (b) Does Kraft get sued? Obviously "B" would be the case, since the local grocery stores would say: "We had no way to test the cheese for poison, it was pre-packaged from Kraft" This is very similar to what would happen in a 100% autonomous vehicle situation. The owner doesn't have access nor the capability to judge the engineering / code. >Toyota recalled thousands of trucks about 3 months Not the same. Toyota doing a recall to replace a $200 part doesn't come close to the potential liability that a autonomous manufacturer that had thousands of accidents...each potentially costing millions each. >Even if insurance were the issue, it's fairly easy to solve; in the contract you sign to use an automated vehicle, you'd assume liability. Yes, and the trucking companies will just say: No Their insurance rates would skyrocket so high, that it would be cheaper to just continue to use human drivers.
- ameister14 8y ago
  No, people don't just sue the drivers because it's driver error, they sue because they have a chance to get money. People who get t-boned by a driver running a red light get sued by the insurance company of the driver that ran the light. It can have nothing to do with who is at fault, ultimately, just who is the easiest target. In your Kraft scenario, the store would likely be sued, as would the corporation running the store, Kraft, and potentially the packaging company. Here's a perfect example; the Romaine lettuce E. coli outbreak happens, right. A man eats a salad at a restaurant, gets sick. Who does he sue? Everybody. Has nothing to do with who is responsible, has a lot to do with who is going to pay his bills. Why is the liability for a $200 part lower? If the cars can't apply the brakes properly and people die in car accidents, are they any less responsible? Trucking companies won't say no, because it's extremely unlikely that all the cars will get into accidents all the time, and they don't have to pay more because the car didn't have a driver than they would if the car was being driven by their employee. Why would their insurance rates skyrocket? It appears there will be far less accidents with automated cars.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> This is pretty well established. If your Toyota malfunctions and you hit someone, you get sued. You may sue Toyota afterwards, but you're going to get sued first. It's not unlikely if the immediate crash investigation even hints at a product defect, you (all of driver, driver's employer if done in course of employment, and owner if different from the preceding two), Toyota, and everyone in the chain of commerce between you, plus the people up the chain from Toyota with regard to the part at fault will all get sued, simultaneously, in the same action. The only change self-driving cars bring is eliminating the driver as a distinct target from the manufacturer and a whole bunch of upstream suppliers, but the person or company owning and the one (of different) directing the operation of the vehicle are still potential liability targets, as well as the upstream chain of commerce.

_red 8y ago

>If your Toyota malfunctions and you hit someone, you get sued. You may sue Toyota afterwards, but you're going to get sued first. You extrapolating that future markets will work exactly like the past, because "its a car". But its doubtful it will. The reason why the auto industry evolved the way it did (driver gets sued), is because 90+% of the time it is operator error. Look at another example. Kraft distributes 10M packages of poisoned cheese, what happens: (a) All the local grocery stores get sued? or (b) Does Kraft get sued? Obviously "B" would be the case, since the local grocery stores would say: "We had no way to test the cheese for poison, it was pre-packaged from Kraft" This is very similar to what would happen in a 100% autonomous vehicle situation. The owner doesn't have access nor the capability to judge the engineering / code. >Toyota recalled thousands of trucks about 3 months Not the same. Toyota doing a recall to replace a $200 part doesn't come close to the potential liability that a autonomous manufacturer that had thousands of accidents...each potentially costing millions each. >Even if insurance were the issue, it's fairly easy to solve; in the contract you sign to use an automated vehicle, you'd assume liability. Yes, and the trucking companies will just say: No Their insurance rates would skyrocket so high, that it would be cheaper to just continue to use human drivers.

ameister14 8y ago
No, people don't just sue the drivers because it's driver error, they sue because they have a chance to get money. People who get t-boned by a driver running a red light get sued by the insurance company of the driver that ran the light. It can have nothing to do with who is at fault, ultimately, just who is the easiest target. In your Kraft scenario, the store would likely be sued, as would the corporation running the store, Kraft, and potentially the packaging company. Here's a perfect example; the Romaine lettuce E. coli outbreak happens, right. A man eats a salad at a restaurant, gets sick. Who does he sue? Everybody. Has nothing to do with who is responsible, has a lot to do with who is going to pay his bills. Why is the liability for a $200 part lower? If the cars can't apply the brakes properly and people die in car accidents, are they any less responsible? Trucking companies won't say no, because it's extremely unlikely that all the cars will get into accidents all the time, and they don't have to pay more because the car didn't have a driver than they would if the car was being driven by their employee. Why would their insurance rates skyrocket? It appears there will be far less accidents with automated cars.

dragonwriter 8y ago

> This is pretty well established. If your Toyota malfunctions and you hit someone, you get sued. You may sue Toyota afterwards, but you're going to get sued first. It's not unlikely if the immediate crash investigation even hints at a product defect, you (all of driver, driver's employer if done in course of employment, and owner if different from the preceding two), Toyota, and everyone in the chain of commerce between you, plus the people up the chain from Toyota with regard to the part at fault will all get sued, simultaneously, in the same action. The only change self-driving cars bring is eliminating the driver as a distinct target from the manufacturer and a whole bunch of upstream suppliers, but the person or company owning and the one (of different) directing the operation of the vehicle are still potential liability targets, as well as the upstream chain of commerce.