The Pros And Cons Of Driverless Vehicles

Autonomous vehicles—commonly referred to as driverless cars—are an ever-growing part of the transportation landscape in the United States. With companies like Google and Tesla reporting that their autonomous vehicles have now safely driven millions of miles on American roads, it now seems inevitable that driverless cars will become a widely accepted means of transportation in coming decades.

But will autonomous vehicles deliver the safety gains their engineers have promised, or will they simply create new legal questions for auto accident lawyers to navigate in court? Below, Nagle & Associates, PA, experienced auto accident lawyers serving all of North Carolina, explain some of the safety and liability issues surrounding autonomous vehicles.

Will Driverless Cars Prevent Accidents?

Legality

The first question many ask is whether driverless cars are even legal to operate on public roads. But because autonomous vehicles are such an unprecedented technology, there are few laws on the books in any state that expressly forbid them. A few states have authorized
In fact, none of the accidents have been fatal to this point and the majority of them were caused by human drivers in other vehicles. And a recent report by consultants from McKinsey & Company has indicated that, once widely adopted, autonomous vehicles could potentially reduce automobile accidents by 90%.

These safety claims leave out some of the attendant ethical dilemmas that those who study autonomous vehicles anticipate, such as how the vehicle’s control system might weigh pedestrian safety versus passenger safety when the two come into conflict. The jaw-dropping number from McKinsey & Company also refers to any type of accident. Several of Google’s accidents have involved being rear-ended by a human driver, so there may still be traffic injuries and plenty of work for auto accident lawyers.