When thinking of the Jetson's lovable robot Rosie, did you ever doubt her personhood? Rosie was always a part of the Jetson family and acted as more of a surrogate mother than a machine. Would you consider your car a person? Probably not. But as machines become more and more involved in the everyday lives of humans, their role in relation to the law may need to be defined.

Google's Self-Driving Car Presents Challenges

The problem of the law's relationship with machines becomes more obvious in the case of Google's latest technology: the self-driving cars they have been working to develop for several years.

In a hypothetical scenario, say you bought a self-driving car from Google. The car then got into an accident while you were inside of it. There was no human error involved in the accident, but rather the algorithms, sensors, and controls failed, which would be the fault of the manufacturer: Google.

However, if the owner had not maintained proper upkeep, human error could be cited. Or say a self-driving car swerves to avoid a deer, like a human driver would, and crashes into another car. Google is not liable since nothing was wrong with the software running the car. The owner of the car is not liable because the accident was not due to improper maintenance. The only thing liable in this scenario is the self-driving car. So who pays for damages?

Automated Cars Beg Liability Questions

If self-driving cars become independent legal entities, these cars would need to have their own insurance. These cars are still a while away from becoming popular alternatives to conventional driving, but as automatic technologies are developed, more and more conventional driving alternatives are popping up in existing vehicles. Many cars now have automatic parallel parking capacities with even more technologies being developed to regulate breaking distance and acceleration speeds.

Drafts to begin insuring these cars are underway in California's Department of Motor Vehicles. Some issues such as autopilot responsibility and technical specifications are being addressed. The more advanced cars that are on the road will help determine insurance regulations since coverage decisions are based on real-world experiences. Further examples will have to be analyzed to round out traffic scenarios that are likely to occur. As these cases become more common, insurance companies and legal professionals will begin carving out the law to develop the case for insuring self-driving cars and their legal responsibilities.