GM Faces Another Lawsuit Involving Self-Driving Car

General Motors is facing another new lawsuit that involves one of the companies self-driving vehicles, the Chevrolet Bolt; and a motorbike.

In the suit, the motorcyclist claims that the Chevy Bolt suddenly attempted to transition into his lane, by doing so that this knocked the motorcyclist down to the ground. Though, that narrative of events is being disputed.

In a conflicting accident report that was filed, it's alleged that the Chevy Bolt was traveling in the center of three one-way lanes. And that from this position, it allegedly attempted to transition into the left lane, but then it aborted that plan when braking traffic cut off the opportunity.

While this was taking place, the motorcyclist was allegedly positioned between the center and right lane, making a transition into the center lane, according to the accident report that was filed by General Motors, when they collided with the autonomous vehicle.

GM also claims that the autonomous vehicle was only traveling around 12mph, with the motorcyclist estimated to be traveling around 17mph.

This isn't the first lawsuit to involve an autonomous vehicle, GM has been involved in a handful of lawsuits that have been directed at it's self-driving vehicles, though none of the vehicles have been found responsible.

The company has been testing its autonomous vehicles on the streets of San Francisco for some time now, and there are other companies testing self-driving cars in California and elsewhere in the US as well.

This new lawsuit comes just after GM recently announced plans for a self-driving ride-share service, and detailed plans for the release of a Level 5 autonomous vehicle that is expected to be on the market by 2019. That car is going to come without any steering wheel or pedals (see below).

With the sales for autonomous vehicles expected to increase in years to come, we can expect more lawsuits like this to emerge.

And one of the difficulties with that is in determining who should be at fault for the accident, after all- if the driver wasn't driving, should the car maker be the one to blame?

The data that the vehicles are able to collect could help to shed some light on the responsibility of who might be at fault, but whether or not companies are going to be forthcoming in sharing that information and data is another story.

Legal scholars, like Professor B. Smith from the University of South Carolina's School of Law, have suggested that if such a scenario arises where it looks like the company and its technology are the one to blame for an accident, that they might respond to that by looking to aggressively settle the matter quickly.

And for now, the federal government has left it up to the states themselves to decide how they want to determine liability when it involves owners of an autonomous vehicle, passengers, operators, manufacturers, and other parties.

As far as working out the insurance of the matter, a spokeswoman for the Washington Insurance Commissioner, Kara Klotz, says that there currently aren't regulations that are specific to self-driving cars. That means, the insurance market is going to have to adapt and innovate, to come up with new products, as this industry continues to progress. It will have to find a way to come up with possible tools for resolution, to meet the needs that arise from conflicts in this space.

The data that the cars collect is going to be very valuable in determining what actually took place, why the vehicle made the decisions that it did, and insurance companies are going to want access to that valuable data.

It's been indicated by several people in this market space, that this could become a number one issue in the insurance industry, with fully autonomous cars expected to some day dominate the streets.

Pics:
Pixabay
pixabay
GM via wired
shutterstock via abajournal

Sources:
https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/23/16925396/gm-cruise-automation-self-driving-car-crash-lawsuit
https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1114743_chevy-cruise-av-gms-autonomous-electric-bolt-ev-to-go-into-production-in-2019
http://insideunmannedsystems.com/two-lawsuits-autonomous-vehicle-industry-taking-notice/
https://futurism.com/autonomous-cars-driving-our-streets-welcome-2018/
https://futurism.com/gm-gave-first-public-ride-self-driving-cars/
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/wholl-be-responsible-when-self-driving-car-crashes/
https://www.reuters.com/article/autos-selfdriving-crashes/gms-self-driving-cars-involved-in-six-accidents-in-september-idUSL2N1MF1RO
http://www.jurist.org/hotline/2017/11/Sean-Cleary-driverless-cars.php
https://jalopnik.com/motorcyclist-sues-gm-over-crash-with-self-driving-chevy-1822358606
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jan/24/general-motors-sued-motorcyclist-first-lawsuit-involve-autonomous-vehicle
http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/selfdriving_liability_highly_automated_vehicle