As we all know, recently there have been a few fatal accidents involving autonomous vehicles in the United States. While still under investigation, these accidents have brought to the forefront concerns about who is truly liable when such an accident occurs. Uber has already settled with part of the family for the pedestrian that was struck and killed by one of its autonomous vehicles in Arizona.

Who is, or will be liable for such accidents when vehicles start operating in truly autonomous form on a regular basis is one of the largest issues with such vehicles. Along with possible malfunctions, the biggest issue of is the owner of the vehicle liable, even if he was not in control of the vehicle, or the manufacturer of the vehicle is liable, whether or not the vehicle malfunctioned, is in continual discussion.

The Japanese government's Council on Investments for the Future met last week and issued a proposed set of guidelines towards how to assign such liability. Japan hopes to set regulatory and legal direction before the cars become widespread. A key issue is the third level of automation, where the vehicle is capable of operating on its own under certain situations with a driver present. This third level is where the vehicles in both the Arizona and California vehicles were operating.

The proposed guidelines make the owner liable for accidents that occur while the vehicles are operating autonomously. These vehicles will be covered by standard insurance. The manufacturers will be liable only if there is a clear flaw in the vehicle's autonomous system. In order to determine whether or not the vehicle malfunctioned, autonomous vehicles will be required to have recording devices that record location, steering and operational status of the autonomous driving system. This is different from how the United States has been looking at it, where some manufacturers have already indicated that when in autonomous mode they will accept liability for the accident. However, in the Tesla crash, where the driver was aware that the system was not acting correctly at a particular location, Tesla has stated that the owner knew of the issue and should have acted to prevent the accident, and that their vehicles are not fully autonomous.

The Japanese guidelines indicate that hacking of autonomous vehicles and any resultant damages will be considered the same as theft as long as the owners take proper security measures and keep the systems updated as per the manufacturer's instructions. Another issue is that the Japanese road traffic laws are based on the Geneva Convention on Road Traffic, which assumes human involvement. Autonomous vehicles were not contemplated when the convention was established in 1949. It was replaced by the Vienna Convention on Road Traffic in 1968, and the Vienna Convention was put in force on May 21, 1977 for signatory countries. The Convention was designed to facilitate international road traffic and increase safety by establishing standard traffic rules in the countries participating in the Convention. All of Europe, Russia, Japan, and parts of Africa and South America participate in the treaty. It will be interesting to see how autonomous vehicles are handled by the convention once they become more popular. Meanwhile, we are just at the beginning of making a final determination of liability when autonomous vehicles are involved.