Our columns have always dealt with the law as it has existed. Technology, however, is moving so fast and changing our lives in such a profound way, that at times our thoughts look forward to the future. One of the products touched by technology has been the automobile, which has seen many advances. Perhaps the most striking of these features is the ability of the automobile to partially or totally drive itself. We will, in this column, look at the present automated technology, and then discuss where the law may go with self-driving cars. There is great interest by car companies in automated driving, with Volvo, Infiniti, Mercedes, BMW and, especially Tesla presently using features in their vehicles. Non-automotive companies are also deeply invested into this area, led by Apple and Google.
Two strikingly different appro-aches to the “self-driving car” have been taken by Google and Tesla. As The New York Times recently reported, in 2013 Google allowed its employees to test self-driving technology while on their commutes to work. The intention was that, if the self-driving software appeared to be commencing an unsafe act, the driver could reassert control. Google’s engineers were alarmed by the results of the test, which suggested that it “might not be possible to have a human snap back to ‘situational awareness’” in time to avoid a collision.1 Google decided to eliminate the human driver altogether, and to design its self-driving cars with plastic windshields, foam-insulated fronts, no steering wheels, and limited speed capabilities. It does not expect to market these cars before 2019.
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