Sorry Officer, I Wasn’t Driving — My Car Was

What are the legal and regulatory implications for automated vehicle technologies and driverless cars?

Automated vehicle (AVs) technologies and driverless cars promise to revolutionize the ways in which we commute, reduce the thousands of people killed or injured on our roads every year, provide increased mobility to people for whom operating a car is difficult or impossible, and lessen the transportation sector’s impact on the environment. The driverless car and the many benefits that it offers paint a powerful narrative of technological improvement.

This narrative does not, however, acknowledge the technical, societal and legal barriers associated with bringing AVs onto the market. Some of the key challenges for their deployment in the United States include the design of compensation schemes, state liability and market penetration. Today’s AV technology, and that of the foreseeable future, is evolutionary and not revolutionary and should be thought of as a shift from passive safety to one of active safety. This has important and underappreciated consequences for grappling with the legal and regulatory issues raised by this powerful new technology.

This event features Diana Bowman, associate professor in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society and the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. Her research analyzes and informs the development of smarter governance and regulation of innovation in order to simultaneously enhance creativity, improve public health, and stimulate deliberation of the ethical, legal and societal dimensions of emerging technologies.