
Who’s Responsible When a Driverless Car Crashes? Tesla’s Got an Idea - edward
http://www.wsj.com/articles/tesla-electric-cars-soon-to-sport-autopilot-functions-such-as-passing-other-vehicles-1431532720
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pseingatl
There was a solution to this problem that was tried and failed: no fault
insurance. Why did it fail? Because lawyers and insurance companies could make
more money if fault were reintroduced to the system, and so fault crept back
in. The only place in the American tort system where you have true no-fault is
worker's comp: if you are injured at the workplace, you are entitled to
compensation. Period. It wasn't always that way: workers had to prove that the
employer or someone else was at fault to recover. So why not, "if you are
injured while driving an automobile, you are entitled to compensation"?
Insurance costs would be much, much lower and you would not need technical
kludges like this one. Law and tech rarely mix coherently. You can't force me
to give up the password to my phone, but you can force me to use my
fingerprint to unlock the phone. The way forward is more general application
of the principles used to make worker's comp universal. And by the way, other
countries do not have this problem.

