Self - driving car not safe at all
Science fiction is no longer in movies but in real world too. The advance of technologies and robotics would have several challenging as well as laws and rules should change if we don’t want to add more chaos to the world we’re living in. At least that’s the message that left an accident happened in Arizona where a pedestrian died after being hit by a self-driving Uber vehicle.
The question is now about who is guilty and who will take the responsibilities for the accident when a human is not behind the wheel. That’s the first litigation involving a fully-autonomous car. Once again Uber is in the public eye for service mistakes.
Despite tech enterprises and automobiles factories have been working during years designing an autonomous self-controlled car in order to prevent accidents and possible obstacles, it has been proved that technologies are not always better than humans. It’s quite possible that a lot of litigation between the ride-hailing company and vehicles suppliers will occur. Legal terms and confidential agreements will come after the incident but the main question is ¿Who blame when people get killed? Uber? The sad thing is the families of the victims should fight against powerful companies that have their well paid legal lawyers.
Car manufacturer and software companies agreed that despite the car gathered data by on-board sensors it wasn´t impossible it could avoid the collision although all the systems functioned properly. So it’s impossible to determinate who will pay the indemnification agreements to the victim’s family.
Elaine Herzberg, 49, was hit when she was with her bicycle outside the crosswalk on a four-lane road in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe. An Uber car traveling in autonomous mode at 40 miles per hour beat her, proving that technologies could prevent a machine but not a human mistake. There is a quite possible that the software, the code and the patterns were OK but the woman didn’t see the car approaching. That hypothesis was confirmed, after a video was release, by Chief Officer of Tempe, Sylvia Moir, who said it would have been hard to prevent the collision according to the evidence. She detailed the victim came from shadows and neither a human-controlled car could avoid hitting her.
So far the case is undergoing and the litigation will be a hard case for attorney and prosecutor. In one hand the police department of the state it wasn’t the vehicle’s fault, and in the other hand, many lawyers consider Uber and Volvo should accept the consequences. No matter whose fault was, experts in laws expect Uberto face the trial; however, it will certainly settle down to get away from bad publicity. As in the case of Uber drivers’ sexual assaults, Paul Rafferty, a lawyer who represents carmakers, said it’s possible it will a confidential close-door litigation process.
The truth is that nobody wants to carry the guilty upon their shoulders. Volvo company, Swedish car brand owned by China’s Geely, said even though it was one of their cars, the responsibility of the accident lies on the owners of the software controlling the SUV. In 2015 Volvo said that they will take responsibilities of any liability when they have their own software. The company suppliedUber with 24000 self-driving in 2017.
Then, before robots begin being part of humans’daily life, it’s recommendable to set legally-based measures to prevent sad outcomes.
