Self-Driving Car Accidents in Florida: What You Should Know
Is anyone driving that car? While this may seem like a crazy question now, it won’t be in the next few years. The car accident attorneys at Peck Law have seen their fair share of car accidents, but HB-311, the law regarding driverless cars that Governor Ron Desantis recently signed into law, raises some serious questions about what driving in Florida will be like in the years to come.
Under the new law, fully autonomous vehicles can be operated without a person in the vehicle. In other words, these vehicles are controlled remotely. Granted, pursuant to Fla.Stat. § 627.749, an owner of a fully autonomous vehicle that is being operated remotely is required to carry a primary liability insurance policy with at least one million dollars worth of coverage for death, bodily injury, and property damage. However, most people are more concerned with the general idea of a car operating without a driver than with the amount of insurance a company operating an autonomous vehicle is required to carry, and rightfully so, the idea of a car being able to drive itself safely, even in the modern era, is pretty difficult to imagine.
How Often do Self-Driving Cars Crash?
However, when it comes to self-driving cars, there is good news and bad news. On the one hand, preliminary data released on autonomous vehicles suggests that, overall, autonomous cars are pretty safe. For example, a study conducted by the University of Michigan in 2015 concluded that while autonomous vehicles had a higher accident rate than their human counterparts, normally, the self-driving car was not at fault, and of the accidents that did occur involving a self-driving car in autonomous mode, the injuries sustained in these accidents were less severe than those involving a human driver.
However, as the researchers conducting the study admitted, most of the data gathered on self-driving cars has been based on how these vehicles operate under limited conditions, which makes sense when you consider that a company like Google pays about $150,000 to build just one fully autonomous vehicle. Due to this, we don’t know how these cars will function in inclimate weather or other unexpected conditions.
Self-Driving Car Accidents in Florida and the United States
Plus, not all of the news about self-driving cars is positive. For example, in Arizona, a self-driving car owned by Uber ran over and killed a woman who was crossing the street with her bicycle, and that vehicle had a human safety driver to take control of the vehicle according to the New York Times. In the sunshine state specifically, a man driving an autonomous vehicle on autopilot in Delray Beach, FL ran into a semi-truck killing the driver of the car instantly. The vehicle was traveling 68 MPH on a highway with a posted speed limit of 55 MPH, and while it is clear that the car was driving itself at the time of the accident, it is unclear as to why the car failed to perform any evasive maneuvers in an attempt to avoid the crash.
A week before the accident in Delray Beach, FL, another man in Davie, FL (just north of Miami) was involved in a fatal crash in a car with autonomous capabilities, but it is unclear whether the vehicle was being controlled by the driver or the vehicle itself when the crash occurred. Moreover, not all of the crashes involving self-driving cars have been fatal. For example, a driver in Connecticut had an autonomous vehicle in autopilot mode while he was checking on his dog in the back seat. The car backed into a parked police cruiser and then ran into another disabled vehicle, so while there is a widely held consensus among experts that self-driving cars will be widely used throughout the country in the future, there is also no doubt that developing and testing this technology will pose some unique legal issues.
Legal Issues Associated with Self-Driving Cars on the Highways
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), 12 states permit self-driving cars to operate on their roads without a driver, but one of the problems this new technology poses for human drivers is that accidents involving self-driving cars is an area of law that is currently in its infancy. As such, drivers involved in an accident with an autonomous vehicle are faced with the very complicated and complex task of being able to prove that the car, which contains some of the most advanced technology available in the United States, is responsible for having caused the accident.
Moreover, since companies operating autonomous vehicles in Florida must carry a sizable insurance policy, they have a very large incentive to litigate any claims involving their vehicles extensively as a matter of course, because failing to do so could lead to stricter regulations being imposed on companies operating autonomous vehicles. For example, in California, new regulations regarding self-driving cars were imposed in 2018 on various companies using or planning to use autonomous cars. This was, at least in part, a response to the death of the woman in Arizona we previously referenced. Thus, if there is a perception that autonomous technology could be dangerous, it can lead to additional regulations being imposed on companies seeking to utilize the technology thereby giving these companies an incentive on a broad level to try and minimize any flaws found in their technology throughout the course of any accident-related litigation.
Car Accident Attorney in Spring Hill, FL
As technology changes, the legal landscape for car accident victims becomes more and more complicated, which is why hiring the right attorney is one of the most important decisions you will make after being involved in a car accident. The car accident attorneys at Peck Law are dedicated to helping car accident victims seek the compensation they deserve for their injuries, and we are ready to start working on your claim today. So, if you or a loved one have been involved in a car accident of any kind, call Peck Law today to find out how our car accident attorneys can help you.
