The California legislature is the third in the nation to approve driver-less automobiles for it’s roadways. On September 25th, California Governor, Jerry Brown, signed into law senate bill 1298 which makes the automated vehicles legal and authorizes California’s department of motor vehicles to regulate applicable safety protocols for the cars.
These new automated vehicles are an example of how the law struggles to keep up with ever changing technologies. Under the law today, it is assumed that a driver is operating the vehicle and assigns liability to the driver. These new automated cars raise the issue of, if there is a personal injury, who is in fact liable. Would the driver be liable or would the product manufacturer be liable?
Under California’s law, the driver-less vehicles can be operated on California’s roadways but only if there is also a licensed driver behind the wheel and able to take control in the event of a malfunction. For now, these issues of liability and safety have been left up to California’s DMV to sort out.
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