Research On Criminal Liability For Crimes Involving Self-driving Cars

Although self-driving cars have the advantage of being more convenient and faster than conventional cars,they are not in a state of absolute safety while driving due to their own processing systems,algorithm programming and other factors.Cars with advanced or fully autonomous driving capabilities can even perform all driving tasks on their own,making it a more complex challenge to determine criminal liability in the event of an accident than a traditional car.At present,China has not yet introduced complete legal provisions on crimes involving self-driving cars,and if criminal liability is not effectively allocated to them and targeted measures are not put forward to solve the problem,the lives,health and property of the people will be affected.In addition to the introduction and concluding remarks,this article examines the criminal liability of crimes involving self-driving cars from the following four aspects,with a view to benefiting the legislative and judicial work related to self-driving cars in China.The first part introduces autonomous vehicle technology,class definitions,the current status of legislation,and provides a generalised classification of the types of offences involving autonomous vehicles.By outlining the principles of autonomous vehicle procedures and the criteria for defining classes,it provides basic support for the allocation of criminal liability for offences involving autonomous vehicles.By comparing the current state of autonomous vehicle legislation at home and abroad,it provides a reference for China’s experience and development direction.To classify the types of offences involving self-driving cars based on the legal interests infringed,to clarify the crimes and offences involved,and to establish the premise of this study.In the second part,the current debate on the criminal liability for offences involving autonomous vehicles is summarised.Through five aspects: the debate on the qualification of the subject,the debate on the scope of the subject,the debate on the allocation of responsibility,the debate on the definition of causation,and the debate on the imputation of responsibility for the crime of negligence,the existing problems of crimes involving self-driving cars are analyzed.Through the analysis of the existing problems,it is concluded that self-driving cars are not qualified as criminal subjects and can be clarified through the effectiveness of penalties;the scope of subjects should adopt a multi-subject view;criminal liability should be allocated according to the degree of breach of duty of care;the definition of causation can try to use objective imputation to sort out;the imputation of negligence can adopt the principle of reliance to reshape the duty of care.The third part is based on China’s driving automation levels and classification standards,and explores the criminal liability of different subjects involved in crimes involving self-driving cars under different circumstances.In particular,the criminal liability of developers,producers,sellers,users and cyber hackers or other third parties who illegally exploit self-driving cars will be reasonably pursued,with a view to effectively addressing the challenge of allocating criminal liability in the event of accidents involving L4 and L5 self-driving cars and,in some cases,L3 self-driving cars.The fourth part,based on the exploration of the basic theory and legislative status of autonomous driving in the previous section,proposes a future outlook on the criminal liability of offences involving autonomous vehicles,taking into account the existing problems and specific determinations of the criminal liability of offences involving autonomous vehicles.In particular,the following aspects are taken as the starting point: the construction of a criminal law system for the whole process of research and development;the revision of existing offences such as traffic offences and dangerous driving offences;the creation of a new offence of negligence related to autonomous driving;the reference to the system of prohibition of practice;and the prudent consideration of the offences and penalties for subjects related to autonomous vehicles.