Tesla wins first US Autopilot trial involving fatal crash
Believe it or not, this legal issue be a bigger step forward on the adoption of autonomous vehicles, than technological ones.
In a historic decision, past 31st October a California jury has ruled in favor of Tesla in a lawsuit stemming from a 2019 crash involving a Model 3 operating on Autopilot. The plaintiff, the family of the deceased driver, Micah Lee, alleged that Autopilot's defective design caused the vehicle to veer off the road, colliding with a palm tree and resulting in Lee's death.
Tesla maintained that the crash was attributable to human error, emphasizing Lee's reported alcohol consumption prior to the incident. Additionally, Tesla questioned whether Autopilot was even engaged at the time of the crash.
After deliberating, the jury sided with Tesla, finding in a 9-to-3 verdict that the company was not liable for the tragic accident. This ruling marks Tesla's second victory in a string of cases involving Autopilot-related crashes.
These verdicts clears the ongoing legal debate surrounding the responsibilities of automakers in relation to advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS). As ADAS technology becomes increasingly prevalent, courts are grappling with the complex question of apportioning liability in the event of accidents. And I do believe that these milestones are as important as technological steps forward a hypothetical mass adoption of autonomous vehicles in a mid term future.
Earlier this year, a jury ruled against plaintiff Justine Hsu, who sued Tesla after his vehicle hit a median in Los Angeles while using Autopilot. However, this woman wasn’t involved in a mortal accident. Tesla won the trial by defending that it tells drivers that its technology requires human monitoring, despite the “autopilot” and “full self-driving” names. This point is quite a cynical usage of technological terms for marketing, and we cannot grant that every Tesla driver is aware of engineering basics of autonomouos driving. Now, the company again is under investigation due to some ADAS that allow drivers to use the system for extended periods of time without prompting the driver to place their hands on the steering wheel, the so called Elon mode. We’ll see. Coming back to the trial, the company owned by Elon Musk states that
“Every driver should be ready to take full control of the car at any moment”
The lawyer of the company states that the system warns with enough time for the driver to react, but only if he or she is concentrated on the road. Nothing new under the sun.
In every fatal crash involving Autopilot, it has been obvious that the driver failed to pay attention to the road. In the Huang crash, for example, NTSB investigators determined that a victim was playing a game on his phone when he died. This reminds me the idiom do as I say, not as I do.
By they way, Ford and other vehicle manufacturers, including BMW and Mercedes, already released systems for releasing hands from the steering wheel with much less fanfare than Tesla.