Human Liability in Semi-Autonomous Vehicles

The promise of fully autonomous vehicles has faced repeated delays, with widespread availability now projected to be limited to specific routes or geographic areas in the near future. Instead, conditional or semi-autonomous systems (SAE Level 3) are being introduced, where the vehicle can drive autonomously under limited conditions but still requires a human driver to take control when necessary. This paper examines the regulatory and liability challenges posed by these semi-autonomous vehicles. Existing laws have gaps in addressing the ambiguous responsibility of the human driver in the shared control environment of Level 3 autonomy.

Factors like fatigue, lack of situational information, and over-reliance on the autonomous system diminish a human driver’s ability to intervene effectively. Current negligence and product liability tort doctrines struggle to allocate liability in semi-autonomous scenarios due to issues of foreseeability, the unpredictability of AI decision-making, and shared human-machine control. No-fault insurance schemes also face hurdles in determining coverage and premiums for semi-autonomous risks. To address these gaps, this paper proposes defining a new legal “supervisor” role for human drivers of semi-autonomous vehicles, with liability dependent on providing adequate alerts and road/system status data from the autonomous driving system.

Delineating human and machine responsibilities through regulation can align legal frameworks with the realities of human-AI interaction, while simultaneously promoting the benefits of vehicle autonomy technology.