Legal update: Autonomous vehicle liability

It is generally accepted that driverless vehicles will arrive on our roads in the not too distant future and, when they do, the road network will gradually become a safer place than at present. However, the term “driverless” is currently being applied both to the specific, short-duration assisted driving modes delivered by Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, such as lane-assist and self-parking, and to vehicles which in future will be fully autonomous all of the time. In this article, Nick Rogers examines where liability attaches when an autonomous vehicle cannot avoid an accident.