GM Faces Another Lawsuit Involving Self-Driving Car
General Motors is facing another new lawsuit that involves one of the companies self-driving vehicles, the Chevrolet Bolt; and a motorbike.
In the suit, the motorcyclist claims that the Chevy Bolt suddenly attempted to transition into his lane, by doing so that this knocked the motorcyclist down to the ground. Though, that narrative of events is being disputed.
In a conflicting accident report that was filed, it's alleged that the Chevy Bolt was traveling in the center of three one-way lanes. And that from this position, it allegedly attempted to transition into the left lane, but then it aborted that plan when braking traffic cut off the opportunity.
While this was taking place, the motorcyclist was allegedly positioned between the center and right lane, making a transition into the center lane, according to the accident report that was filed by General Motors, when they collided with the autonomous vehicle.
GM also claims that the autonomous vehicle was only traveling around 12mph, with the motorcyclist estimated to be traveling around 17mph.
This isn't the first lawsuit to involve an autonomous vehicle, GM has been involved in a handful of lawsuits that have been directed at it's self-driving vehicles, though none of the vehicles have been found responsible.
The company has been testing its autonomous vehicles on the streets of San Francisco for some time now, and there are other companies testing self-driving cars in California and elsewhere in the US as well.
This new lawsuit comes just after GM recently announced plans for a self-driving ride-share service, and detailed plans for the release of a Level 5 autonomous vehicle that is expected to be on the market by 2019. That car is going to come without any steering wheel or pedals (see below).
With the sales for autonomous vehicles expected to increase in years to come, we can expect more lawsuits like this to emerge.
And one of the difficulties with that is in determining who should be at fault for the accident, after all- if the driver wasn't driving, should the car maker be the one to blame?
The data that the vehicles are able to collect could help to shed some light on the responsibility of who might be at fault, but whether or not companies are going to be forthcoming in sharing that information and data is another story.
Legal scholars, like Professor B. Smith from the University of South Carolina's School of Law, have suggested that if such a scenario arises where it looks like the company and its technology are the one to blame for an accident, that they might respond to that by looking to aggressively settle the matter quickly.
And for now, the federal government has left it up to the states themselves to decide how they want to determine liability when it involves owners of an autonomous vehicle, passengers, operators, manufacturers, and other parties.
As far as working out the insurance of the matter, a spokeswoman for the Washington Insurance Commissioner, Kara Klotz, says that there currently aren't regulations that are specific to self-driving cars. That means, the insurance market is going to have to adapt and innovate, to come up with new products, as this industry continues to progress. It will have to find a way to come up with possible tools for resolution, to meet the needs that arise from conflicts in this space.
The data that the cars collect is going to be very valuable in determining what actually took place, why the vehicle made the decisions that it did, and insurance companies are going to want access to that valuable data.
It's been indicated by several people in this market space, that this could become a number one issue in the insurance industry, with fully autonomous cars expected to some day dominate the streets.
Pics:
Pixabay
pixabay
GM via wired
shutterstock via abajournal
Sources:
https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/23/16925396/gm-cruise-automation-self-driving-car-crash-lawsuit
https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1114743_chevy-cruise-av-gms-autonomous-electric-bolt-ev-to-go-into-production-in-2019
http://insideunmannedsystems.com/two-lawsuits-autonomous-vehicle-industry-taking-notice/
https://futurism.com/autonomous-cars-driving-our-streets-welcome-2018/
https://futurism.com/gm-gave-first-public-ride-self-driving-cars/
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/wholl-be-responsible-when-self-driving-car-crashes/
https://www.reuters.com/article/autos-selfdriving-crashes/gms-self-driving-cars-involved-in-six-accidents-in-september-idUSL2N1MF1RO
http://www.jurist.org/hotline/2017/11/Sean-Cleary-driverless-cars.php
https://jalopnik.com/motorcyclist-sues-gm-over-crash-with-self-driving-chevy-1822358606
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jan/24/general-motors-sued-motorcyclist-first-lawsuit-involve-autonomous-vehicle
http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/selfdriving_liability_highly_automated_vehicle
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I'm never getting my ass into a so-called self-driving car no matter how much the manufacturers tout their safety.
We have hardware from Intel and software from Microsoft, along with entire internet protocols, that still have exploitable bugs and all kinds of loopholes in them for God's sake!
Self-driving cars are a bad idea!
If you ever get to talk to the programmers working on this shit, you will be scared, and 2020 will seem WAY TO SOON for cars to be self driving.
Currently the processing needed to drive the car takes over 10 hp. And, if the car is electric, that puts an even greater burden on the efficiency.
The way they are currently handling bikes is to just ignore them unless they are in the front. Doing anything else causes a lot of problems in erratic behavior of the vehicle.
One of the biggest failures, I shit you not, is when a bum is considered a piece of street furniture, and then starts moving. The program, having decided that something was permanent/stationary runs into a huge logical mess, when it is suddenly not stationary.
unlike a person on their phone who will hit the bum whether they are moving or not.
Yes, you can blame bad drivers for all kinds of things.
However, a computer that cannot correctly identify an object, and thus freaks out because the program doesn't have a case to solve the problem is not driving at all.
Lets say that there is a situation that every driver gets into about once a year. And that the human driver correctly analyzes the situation and corrects accordingly, and that the current computer driver has failed the situation every time. So, by current, bleeding edge technology, that is one accident per year for computer driven cars. I am sure it will be solved sometime, but not in the next two years.
Further, with all of these eco-friendly-green people... we should just throw that out the window for convenience sake? Your car got 35 mpg? Well, with the computer it now gets 30mpg.
processors will get more efficient with each generation, aren't they charging their electric cars from solar panels anyhow? ;)
Oh no that's right, they mostly run on coal.
Right now with human drivers fatal accidents are increasing despite cars being much safer because people are on their phones, I watched people driving by and it's like 40-60% of people actively using their devices while driving on a busy city street, at this point I am happy when I see someone talking on their phone because then they are not texting. These things can't come fast enough. As long as they get in accidents less frequently than humans they are beneficial. And if the thing does not have a steering wheel then whoever made it is responsible if it causes an accident so that will give the makers an incredible incentive to make them have as few accidents as possible.
Love your post @doitvoluntrily
This whole self driving thing is just not anything I would invest in, not at this time. You just have to have control over your vehicle. There was recently report about Tesla on autopilot crashing in to firetrack in 65 mph. We are just not ready for this.
Great post though!
they don't have to drive better than the best drivers to be a huge advancement in safety, just better than the worst.
This news is incredible, to think that seeing a vehicle only driving, were things of ghost and of dreams, now it is a treality, they are even interacting with the day by day through these demands.
In Argentina this is still just a dream or ghost stuff.
Thank you very much dear friend @doitvoluntarily for this wonderful note
I wish you a great day
I would rather have a even a self driving car made by GM in the lane next to me than some asshole on their phone texting.
lol!
The point you make here is more than correct and extremely actual: in order for the society to accept autonomous vehicles, many discussions regarding legislation, insurances and road rule should be done. These problems are being discussed in the great majority of talks and symposiums regarding autonomous driving. In my opinion, the person riding the car shouldn't be treated differently from someone riding a bus or a taxi. It's crucial however that the car makers establish rules on maintenance, because the only case in which an autonomous car fails is when the programmer fails.
Amazing post
Lambo have just released their new self driver:
thank you sir for your update blog