Autonomous Vehicles And Emerging Tort Implications

New technology will undoubtedly improve lives, but it comes with new risks.

Researchers estimate autonomous vehicles (AVs) could reduce accident rates by up to 90 percent, which would save more than 30,000 lives each year and avoid millions of injuries on American roads. Technology can mitigate many of our human weaknesses. According the General Motors Chairman Bob Lutz, "The autonomous car doesn't drink, doesn't do drugs, doesn't text while driving and doesn't get road rage. Autonomous cars don't race other autonomous cars and they don't go to sleep." Though people may eventually be safer in autonomous cars than in traditional vehicles, we have a long way to go and a short time to get there.