The Regulatory Challenge of Autonomous Vehicles

Autonomous vehicles are coming soon, and with them unprecedented regulatory challenges, although it’s not the first time that regulators and urban planners have had to confront a paradigm-wrenching transportation crisis. Attorney Roy Keidar recalls “the great horse manure crisis of 1894,” when  that problem on the streets of major cities was considered serious enough to trigger the first international urban planning conference in New York.  Now, he writes, “to drive the AV industry forward, it is essential for the progress to be backed by the creation of an appropriate legal structure that aligns with the new emerging technological, economic and social reality.” He notes that even though the incidence of crashes is likely to be dramatically reduced with autonomous vehicles, people, and regulators in particular, will have less tolerance for crashes that do occur. Even with the smartest systems there are going to be difficult issues, among them the question of tort liability in the case of car accidents. Another major issue: cybersecurity, as vehicles will be communicating at breakneck speed, both with the environment and with each other.