2nd ICAI 2022

International Conference on Automotive Industry 2022

Mladá Boleslav, Czech Republic

evident the growth of automobile accidents that has been occurring specifically involving autonomous vehicles in tests. It is important to note that the information available on accidents with autonomous cars that were registered with the government agency does not contain official data on the real reason for the accident. Thus, only the dates of accident occurrences are made available to the public, as well as the name of the vehicle manufacturer/model and a document like an incident report. In this sense, it is difficult to scientifically evaluate the records available on the site, in order to determine whether the blame for the accident was on the part of the autonomous automobile system or, if the fault was of third parties and, even in the case of concurrent fault, what was the contribution of each of them. Below is the statistic based on the records of the State of California – USA, whose State has specific legislation requiring that all accidents involving these autonomous vehicles are reported to the competent body. Table 1. Accident’s record of autonomous vehicles in the State of California, USA YEAR ACCIDENTS’ RECORD 2014 1 2015 9 2016 15 2017 29 2018 75 Source: DMV California Department of Transit – USA, 2021 Importantly, the State of California has specific legislation for testing with autonomous vehicles, including testing with and without the driver. However, it was not possible to find information on how many tests were performed per year, but it appears that the number of companies that are allowed to perform the tests is increasing every year. It is worth mentioning that every mechanical, electronic and computational system is subject to some failure, be it design, manufacturing or maintenance. In this sense, in the event of an accident with self-driving cars, who will be held responsible? Will it be the vehicle manufacturer, the control system developer, the component supplier, the supplier who just resold it, the mechanic who did its maintenance, the institutions that approved the vehicle for autonomous operation or the owner? There are many questions that can generate doubts and lead to legal uncertainty. In this sense, the objective of this research is to analyze the civil liability in cases of accidents with autonomous cars, verifying the current legislation and its problem to the application. To this end, it discusses how the institute of civil liability in consumer relations may or may not affect the damage caused by autonomous vehicles equipped with artificial intelligence. Finally, conclusions are presented.

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