Risks And Liability - Cybersecurity And Autonomous Vehicles

The arrival of connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) feels both imminent and far away. Even as we increasingly rely on automation in our daily lives, the idea of self-driving cars that can navigate the chaos of the roads still sounds as fanciful as an episode of The Jetsons or Knight Rider  to most people. But there have been significant developments for autonomous vehicle technology—particularly in the last few years—and more clarity on the various degrees of "autonomy" a vehicle may achieve. After years of theoretical discussion, the picture of what a world in which CAVS are the dominant presence on the roads is coming into focus.

Questions about liability when something goes wrong are less settled, especially where accidents are caused by neither faulty programming nor human error inside or outside of the car. In this article, we consider the current wisdom on this issue.