Comment by sitharus
17 hours ago
At the moment in every jurisdiction I’m aware of the driver is always considered as “in charge” of the vehicle no matter what assistance functions are being used. It’s the driver’s responsibility to avoid collisions in all cases.
If you have a collision and your vehicle is judged at fault by whatever authority does it in your area the you are liable.
Mercedes Drive Pilot (“SAE Level 3”) is certified on some very specific stretches of insterstate in California to not require the driver to be responsible.
https://www.mbusa.com/en/owners/manuals/drive-pilot
Requirements:
- Stop and go traffic (or less than 40mph?)
- On some specific sections of highway
- Driver doesn’t need to monitor but must be ready to take over with 15(?) seconds of the system requesting
> Mercedes-Benz is assuming liability for any crashes or incidents that occur while the autonomous system is active
That last criterion most assuredly will not be matched here.
that's really dumb of Mercedes take on that liability for little benefit - sell more cars, make more profit? My prediction is MB drops this or goes bankrupt in the next 10 years.
It's a marketing gimmick. The conditions under which it can be used are so restrictive that it's really not useful which means it will be rarely used so Mercedes exposure to liability is really quite small.
That’s what SAE L3/L4/L4 autonomous driving systems are about. The car takes full responsibility for a given set of conditions (ODD).
They need to take on that liability to let the human driver stop paying attention, and being able to do that is huge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiB8GVMNJkE
Not sure you understand how "The Formula" works. The profit generated by adding this feature will outweigh the cost of any resulting accidents that they take liability for.
A less pessimistic way of phrasing it is that within the boundaries they've defined, their self driving system is so much better than a human that they're willing to assume responsibility for crashes deemed "at-fault" while using the system.
Not intentionally trying to compare that with other automakers, but Mercedes is the only "you can buy now" vehicle (ignoring robotaxis/Waymo/others) that assumes liability with those capabilities. Until other automakers provide that legal guarantee, they're parlor tricks at best that will continue to get folks killed in scenarios that they otherwise wouldn't had they been actually paying attention.
What if there is no driver because the car is self driving?
I assume the same as if the car owner put a brick on the gas pedal and there was no driver when it had an accident
Found the Chief Legal Officer for Waymo
"Your honor, I don't know how to explain this to you any more simply. I wasn't driving, there was a brick on the gas pedal. It's not my responsibility, not my fault!"
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Well that will depend on your local laws, but to my knowledge except for certain authorised pilot programs all cars on the road must have a driver.
Where I live if you are in the driver’s seat no matter if you were actually actively driving you are considered to be the driver. This has been well established here in drink-driving cases, but you’d have to ask a lawyer for your area.