Would you get into a car that has no steering wheel, accelerator or brakes? Tech giant Google hopes that you will in the future. In fact, it appears that they are banking on the prospect of you not needing a car that has a driver or the traditional controls that a car would need in order to safely navigate around a city.
While driver-less cars may seem to be fantasy at the moment, it appears inevitable for them to come. After all, many cars being marketed have the precursors for truly autonomous cars. The crash avoidance systems that use radar, small cameras and lasers to detect things around the car will eventually be used to create defense systems that will keep people in driver-less cars safe.
A completely diver-less car would likely require an insurance policy that is different from what is currently provided today. After all, most insurance policies that guard against car accidents are liability policies that compensate for a driver’s mistakes (i.e. the failure to use reasonable care while driving). One of the expected benefits of having driver-less cars is that the mistakes that humans may make, either by speeding or driving while under the influence of alcohol, may be a thing of the past. Therefore, an insurance policy that covers a driver-less car may likely be a products liability policy, which protects against potential malfunctions that could cause a car to crash.
In the meantime, dealing with an insurance company may not be the easiest thing to do if you have been involved in an accident. Consulting an experienced personal injury attorney can help.
Source: InsuranceJournal.com “The insurance implications of Google’s Self-Driving Car,”Eli Lehrer, May 28, 2014