The limits of 'self-driving' vehicles
As vehicles become more autonomous, determining liability in a crash will change and affect how coverage is applied.
On the lovely Southern California evening of December 29, 2019, Gilberto Alcazar Lopez and Maria Guadalupe Nieves-Lopez were enjoying a time-honored tradition that most can relate to — they were on a first date. What could have been the start of something special ended in tragedy.
Kevin George Aziz Riad was exiting the freeway in his 2016 Tesla Model S. Riad’s Tesla slammed into the Honda Civic driven by Lopez. Authorities have alleged that Riad had engaged the “autopilot” feature of his Model S when the crash occurred and that he had not manually applied the brakes for approximately six minutes prior to the crash. Lopez and Nieves-Lopez were fatally injured in the accident, while Riad and a passenger in his vehicle were also injured.
Two years after the accident, in October 2021, authorities charged Riad with vehicular manslaughter. He became the first known defendant to be accused of a felony after a fatal accident while using an autonomous driving system. Riad is set for trial in 2023.
Insuring autonomous vehicles
As the proliferation of autonomous and semi-autonomous driving systems continues, car manufacturers, drivers and insurance carriers are grappling with how to police and insure the use of these products. Tesla’s “autopilot” feature was the first mainstream system to claim autonomous or semi-autonomous driving capabilities.
Now, from GM’s “Super Cruise” to Ford’s “BlueCruise” and Nissan’s “ProPilot,” many major car manufacturers offer some type of autonomous or semi-autonomous feature. These range from less-intrusive advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) features like lane-keeping assist and automatic emergency braking to more fully self-driving options.
SAE International, formerly the Society of Automotive Engineers, developed a formal structure to classify driving assistance technologies, from level 0 “no automation” to level 5 “full automation.” While no driver-assist technologies currently available commercially meet the “level 5” classification, systems are advancing rapidly toward that goal.
SAE Automation Levels
- Level 0: No Automation
- Level 1: Driver Assistance — either steering or acceleration assistance
- Level 2: Partial Automation — both steering and acceleration assistance
- Level 3: Conditional Automation — a human driver will respond to a request to intervene
- Level 4: High Automation — the vehicle can intervene if the human driver does not respond
- Level 5: Full Automation — no human intervention required under any roadway and driving conditions
All manufacturers strongly and repeatedly insist that the automation features presently available, irrespective of SAE classification level, do not replace the driver’s attention to issues that may arise on the road and their responsibility to react to them. This is contradictory to multiple stated public proclamations by car manufacturers on the effectiveness and actual “full self-driving” capabilities of their systems. That duality has led some owners to assess the limits of these systems beyond what the manufacturer states, sometimes with tragic results.
Over the coming years, as new technologies are rolled out making driving even more autonomous, insurers will have to work closely with manufacturers to determine when, or if, liability for an auto accident can transfer from the driver of the vehicle (or at-fault third party) to the manufacturer. This will require an end-to-end review of how policies are written, issued and applied when it comes to autonomous vehicles.
All current technologies require the driver to maintain full attention to the road. That could change when Volvo releases its “Ride Pilot” system in the coming years. Pre-release press from the manufacturer has highlighted that “It will be fully self-driving,” according to the head of Volvo’s autonomous driving and mobility, Martin Kristensson. How this statement affects liability in an auto accident could change the landscape of insurance in the future. It will be interesting to watch as this technology, and others like it, redefine not only auto travel but also, potentially, the auto insurance market.
John Crawford is the director of QA and project management at Xceedance.
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Handling electric and semi-autonomous vehicle claims