Legal Issues Loom With Driverless Cars

Foley & Lardner partner Robert H. Huey looks ahead to some of the legal issues likely to arise once driverless cars hit the road. Privacy and data security head the list, with concerns ranging from location tracking by hackers to the more visceral threat of remote commandering of the vehicle, aka carjacking. Possibly the knottiest questions arise in the context of accidents and the unpredictable ways they can play out. “Through the use of sensors, telematics uses electromagnetic waves to detect pedestrians, cars, and other obstacles,” Huey notes. “But when an emergency situation arises and the telematics system has to make a moral decision between two bad choices (e.g., swerve to avoid colliding with a car but potentially strike a pedestrian, or collide with a car to avoid the pedestrian), how will the computer respond and who is liable for that decision?”