{"id":5681,"date":"2018-09-17T14:54:57","date_gmt":"2018-09-17T18:54:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncjolt.org\/?p=5681"},"modified":"2020-06-04T20:52:31","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:52:31","slug":"teslas-self-driving-car-drives-firetruck-liability-truly-lies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/blogs\/teslas-self-driving-car-drives-firetruck-liability-truly-lies\/","title":{"rendered":"Tesla\u2019s Self-Driving Car Drives Itself Into A Firetruck: Where Liability Truly Lies"},"content":{"rendered":"

When one Utah woman took her Tesla out for a spin this past May, she switched it to Autopilot mode, trusting the claims of the Tesla sales representatives that the car would <\/span>brake automatically<\/a>. As long as she occasionally touched the steering wheel, the Tesla Inc. Model S was supposed to use its many cameras and sensors to <\/span>steer within a lane, change lanes, manage the speed of the car, and brake while driving on the highway<\/a>. However, <\/span>Heather P. Lommatzsch\u2019s<\/a> Tesla didn\u2019t brake when it should have. Instead, it careened into stopped traffic, and slammed into a fire truck at 60 mph. <\/span><\/span>
\nLommatzsch\u2019s accident is just one of several that has brought scrutiny upon Tesla\u2019s widely acclaimed Autopilot feature. In May 2016, Joshua Brown was killed when his Tesla Model S, with its self-driving mode activated, crashed into a <\/span>tractor-trailer<\/a>. In January 2017, Gao Yanig was killed after engaging Autopilot on his Tesla Model S, and then crashing into a <\/span>street sweeper<\/a>. In March 2018, Wei Huang was killed when his Tesla Model X, with Autopilot turned on, collided with a <\/span>concrete lane divider and burst into flames<\/a>. In May 2018, two teens were killed when <\/span>their Tesla slammed into a wall<\/a> while on Autopilot. Such a pattern of accidents and tragic fatalities begs the inquiry: why haven\u2019t these cars been recalled yet? Have the families of the deceased brought lawsuits against Tesla? Whose fault is it really? <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The question of whether or not Lommatzsch will win her suit remains undetermined, as <\/span>autonomous vehicle litigation presents uncharted territory<\/a>, with most of the legal landscape limited to settlements and investigations clearing the manufacturers of fault.<\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After her non-fatal accident, <\/span>Lommatzsch did sue Tesla<\/a>, claiming that the sales representatives told her the vehicle would brake automatically if something was in its path as long as she occasionally touched the steering wheel. In a statement about the lawsuit, Tesla <\/span>spokesman David Arnold<\/a> said the company \u201chas always been clear that Autopilot doesn\u2019t make the car impervious to all accidents.\u201d While Autopilot is activated, Arnold said \u201cdrivers are continuously reminded of the responsibility to keep their hands on the wheel and maintain control of the vehicle at all times.\u201d Car data showed that Lommatzsch hadn\u2019t touched the steering wheel for 80 seconds before the crash, and was in fact looking at her phone at the time of the crash.<\/span><\/span>
\nIn May, Tesla agreed to pay Model S and Model X drivers <\/span>$5.4 million to settle class action claims<\/a> that the company delayed safety features and an expensive software upgrade to its autopilot system, and instead rolled out cars with defective traffic awareness features. Such features include collision avoidance and automatic emergency braking, which were meant to be implemented by a December 2016 deadline. The proposed class action suit alleged that Tesla had not only missed the deadline, but that the software powering the features \u201cwas nowhere near ready for the vital tasks for which it was sold.\u201d During the months following the deadline, Tesla only debuted a \u201cdangerously defective\u201d traffic aware cruise control system and a \u201climited front collision warning.\u201d The remaining standard safety features were rolled out later or remained nonexistent when an amended complaint was filed in July. The suit said that the autopilot program that Tesla installed after the deadline included \u201chalf-baked software that renders Tesla vehicles dangerous if engaged.\u201d<\/span><\/span>
\nThe question of whether or not Lommatzsch will win her suit remains undetermined, as <\/span>autonomous vehicle litigation presents uncharted territory<\/a>, with most of the legal landscape limited to settlements and investigations clearing the manufacturers of fault. However, because there are no precedential court decisions involving an accident yet, Tesla could use such an opportunity to avoid settlement and establish precedent in its favor. For example, the court could issue a judgment that Lommatzsch was negligent in her operation of the autonomous vehicle by not keeping her hands on the wheel, clearing Tesla of liability.<\/span><\/span>
\nMost likely, however, fault will be pre-determined based on the findings presented by the National Transportation Safety Board, which has begun <\/span>an investigation into Lommatzsch\u2019s accident<\/a>. It is possible that the National Transportation Safety Board (\u201cNTSB\u201d will find that Lommatzsch was provided with the necessary visual and auditory clues by the Autopilot system to place her hands on the wheel before the accident occurred. <\/span><\/span>
\nFor instance, regarding the March 2018 accident, the <\/span>NTSB preliminary report<\/a> said that the vehicle \u201cprovided two visual alerts and one auditory alert for the driver to place his hands on the steering wheel…more than 15 minutes before the crash.\u201d The report also said that just one minute before the crash occurred, \u201cthe driver\u2019s hands were detected on the steering wheel on three separate occasions for a total of 34 seconds; for the last 6 seconds prior to the crash, the vehicle did not detect the driver\u2019s hands on the steering wheel.\u201d While this investigation is still ongoing, in the previous May 2016 accident, the <\/span>NTSB ultimately concluded<\/a> that the autopilot system was a contributing factor because it gave \u201cfar too much leeway to the driver to divert his attention to something other than driving.\u201d However, in the wake of that crash, Tesla has said that Autopilot stopped allowing drivers to ignore repeated warnings to keep their hands on the wheel. <\/span><\/span>
\nAs a result, a liability determination in Lommatzsch\u2019s suit will have to incorporate a number of different factors: was Lommatzsch negligent in her operation of the vehicle? If so, was that negligence a consequence of her reliance on the representations given by Tesla sales representatives, or did the car provide enough auditory and visual cues to alert Lommatzsch to put her hands on the wheel? Based on the court\u2019s ruling, this lawsuit could prove wholly significant in shaping the landscape of autonomous driving litigation.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When one Utah woman took her Tesla out for a spin this past May, she switched it to Autopilot mode, trusting the claims of the Tesla sales representatives that the car would brake automatically. As long as she occasionally touched the steering wheel, the Tesla Inc. Model S was supposed to use its many cameras …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5683,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5681"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5681"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6930,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5681\/revisions\/6930"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}