Can you avoid a DUI by napping in your ride, or do you have to be alert and capable of taking over the controls if there is a system failure? Who will be responsible if a car violates the rules of the road? you wrong directions, he said, and hackers may even send erroneous messages that another car is about to hit you head-on at 100 miles per hour. Speaker Frank Douma, associate director of the State and Local Policy Program at Hubert Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota, asked whether elimination of the driver excluded all of the “intent” crimes relating to motor vehicle operation. Santa Clara Law Professor Kandis Scott asked whether someone could face criminal liability for overriding safety features. Can you avoid a DUI by napping in your ride, or do you have to be alert and capable of taking over the controls if there is a system failure? Will those who ride in AVs need driver’s licenses in case they need to take control of a car traveling nearly bumper-tobumper at 60 miles per hour? (Arguably, Kitts said, this requires more skills than currently required for a driver’s license.) Who will be responsible if a car violates the rules of the road? Santa Clara Law student and engineer Timothy Takahashi asked what would happen if software from other jurisdictions caused cars, or communication systems, to malfunction. Counsel for State Farm mentioned that a Google test car, programmed for California, made an illegal left turn in Nevada. Kidnappings by hacking into a car’s program is a concern, as are scrambled signals, computer viruses, and having your AV switch to manual when it’s chauffeuring your kindergartner to school.
If We Build It, Will They Come? Autonomous cars have a lot going for them: they offer increased safety, easier commutes, and more transportation options, especially for those who are currently unable to drive due to age or disability. But transportation specialists have learned that safety does not always trump autonomy and control: the public rejected technology that would require seat belts to be fastened before you could turn on your car. And the public, Glancy said, may be skeptical about GPS-controlled, camera-equipped cars, fearing that they could turn into surveillance devices. Speaker M. Ryan Calo of Stanford’s Center for Internet and Society, said, “People fear losing control, and they have 10 santa clara law | spring/summer 2012
a different reaction to safety risks outside their control versus inside.” They are willing to take on the risk of driving because they are used to it. And they assume that most drivers don’t want a head-on collision. Can the same be said for most computers? These fears argue in favor of taking an incremental approach to AVs. Kitts said, “The path toward automation requires giving up some control, and drivers have already begun to do this.” Some new cars already offer lane-change warnings, curve-speed warnings, and “forward collision avoidance and mitigation.” AVs may also hold promise for increased use of public transportation. People who have already surrendered control to drivers of buses and even driverless airport shuttle trains may be more receptive to AVs. But former urban planner and symposium speaker Bryant Walker Smith, who is a Stanford Law School Fellow at CARS, cautioned that making AVs safer and more desirable will not relieve congestion, alluding to the “if we build it they will come” concept that has proven true with respect to California freeways.
Road Testing The U.S. transportation bureaucracy can make or break the future of AVs. Vincent, NHTSA’s chief counsel, reported that the federal government is very interested in “making cars smarter to compensate for human mistakes,” in hope of “eliminating a huge number of traffic deaths, lost time, and economic loss.” But Vincent acknowledged that regulations “need to catch up with technology.” Before the traffic administration can impose regulations, it is required to engage in a rigorous cost-benefit analysis. “This is our biggest regulatory burden,” Vincent said. “We have to come up with the data.” Stephen Wood, assistant chief counsel at NHTSA, added that in the current economy there is “a lot of push for costbenefit analysis.” Just as in the area of insurance, in the world of safety testing, AVs are odd ducks. First off, SCU Law Professor Kerry MacIntosh said, “The technology exists in concept but not in metal and steel that we can test.” There are no manufactured AVs, only conventional cars souped up. Panelist Jon Anderson said, “To find out about safety, sooner or later you have to test the system all together, the connected cars moving together in a fleet controlled via a wireless communication system.” With the technology changing so fast, “How do you regulate a moving target?” MacIntosh asks.