Study On Tort Liability Of Driverless Car Traffic Accidents

In the digital era,driverless cars can change people’s lifestyles,making travel more convenient,safe and environmentally friendly,and the application and promotion of driverless cars is a major trend of development.With the booming development of big data,artificial intelligence,cloud computing and other high technologies,and the introduction of many relevant national policies to support them,the driverless car industry is receiving more and more attention,and a large number of high-tech enterprises and R＆D teams are invested in the development and promotion of driverless technology.At the same time,traffic accidents caused by driverless cars have occurred from time to time,and there are gaps in the relevant legal regulations.Driverless cars are the product of combining traditional motor vehicles and automatic driving systems,and the legal status of driverless cars needs to be defined,which is also the basis for solving their tort liability problems.Some scholars advocate giving driverless cars an independent legal status,so that the problem of tort liability of driverless cars in traffic accidents can be solved from the perspective of legislative theory,and the tort liability will be directly borne by them.However,driverless cars do not have the ability to think as human beings,nor do they enjoy their own property.Solving the problem of liability once and for all in this way is unnecessarily dangerous and will overturn the dichotomy of the civil law of China between persons and things.From the current tort liability codification,the existing legal system is challenged by the many differences between driverless car tort and traditional motor vehicle tort.First,in terms of the type of tort liability,driverless cars have autonomy,automatic driving instead of manual driving,and driverless operation behavior makes it difficult to apply the traditional tort liability for motor vehicle traffic accidents.The product attributes of automobiles,and whether the software equipment such as the autopilot system,which plays a key role in driverless cars,is a product,the determination of defects and causation,and the application of exclusion clauses all pose challenges to the current product quality law.There are also scholars who believe that driverless car infringement can be regulated by reference to the application of high-risk liability and animal tort liability,the feasibility of which is also open to question.Second,in terms of liability,most of the typical tort liability types place the ultimate responsibility for driverless car infringement on the user or producer.The user did not commit the infringement,and there is no direct causal relationship between the user and the result of the damage,which makes the user as the subject of liability is unreasonable.The manufacturer as the subject of liability has certain reasonableness in all aspects before,during and after the event,but it is doubtful whether the scope of the subject of product liability includes the designer of the autopilot system.Third,in terms of damage compensation relief,China’s laws do not clearly provide for an insurance system for driverless cars,which leads to an inability to effectively disperse the risk of accidents and fill the losses of victims in a timely manner.The special nature of driverless car traffic accident tort without driver also makes the existing insurance system,the driver as the subject of insurance has a certain degree of discomfort.From the perspective of interpretation,based on the existing tort liability rules for driverless car tort applicable space,to make appropriate improvements,is a more appropriate path to solve the above problem.First,the driverless car road traffic accident tort liability both motor vehicle road traffic accident liability and product liability dual attributes,combined with motor vehicle traffic accident tort liability rules and product liability rules,to solve the driverless car road traffic accident tort liability problem is more appropriate.Referring to the principle of motor vehicle traffic accident liability,the liability is allocated between driverless cars and other accident subjects,and the "rational car" standard is introduced as a tool to judge the fault of the driverless car,and the user bears the responsibility of the object within the scope of fault.If an accident occurs due to a defect in a driverless car,the manufacturer will assume no-fault product liability,while establishing the responsibility of the developer and designer of the autonomous driving system,defining product defects according to design defects,manufacturing defects,and warning defects,and subjecting the defense of development risk to the obligation of follow-up observation.If a third party such as a cyber-attacker causes a traffic accident,the manufacturer and the cyber-attacking third party bear joint and several liability.Second,the introduction of "black box" technology to identify the root cause of the accident and reduce the burden of proof on the parties.Reasonable allocation of the burden of proof to solve the problem of determining the defects and causal relationship in the tort liability of driverless car traffic accidents.Third,improve the insurance system that is compatible with the tort of driverless car road traffic accidents to effectively disperse the risk of accidents.On the basis of the driverless car’s user purchasing traffic insurance,the driverless car’s manufacturer will purchase product liability insurance.Fourth,establish a regulatory system for the driverless car industry,promote the standardization of the driverless car industry and improve the management system,so as to prevent and reduce risks beforehand.