Every day, people get into car crashes due to negligence, user error, bad reaction times, and just plain bad luck. In fact, according to the Association for Safe International Road Travel, 2.35 million Americans are injured or disabled in road crashes every year.

However, the rise of self driving cars means that driving safety may no longer rely on the motorist, but the car itself.

Could Self-Driving Cars Change Fault Determination in PI Cases?

If you run a personal injury practice, you may find the rise of self-driving cars a little disconcerting. Self-driving cars may radically change transportation as we know it, eliminating many of the reasons people cause automotive crashes. Computers can’t get distracted, they can’t get drunk, and they can more easily adjust for adverse conditions such as snow, rain, and fog.

While mass adoption of self-driving cars clearly means that less people will be negligent on the road, the reality may be more complex than that. Auto manufacturers may not want to be held liable for accidents, and consumers may not find the idea of their car making decisions without them to be all that reassuring.

Drivers' Liability, Adaptation, and Self-Driving Cars

One big issue is liability. Auto manufacturers would be risking a whole lot by selling cars that don’t need to be driven; they’d be on the hook for selling a defective product if a flaw in their hardware or software leads to an accident.

According to The New York Times, manufacturers like Nissan and Tesla haven’t gotten the technology for a fully autonomous car quite right. At least for the foreseeable future, It’s likely that manufacturers won’t gamble with the claim that their cars can really drive themselves, even if they are in every sense able to do that.

While drivers have their own flaws, technology is imperfect as well. Computers may not get drunk or distracted, but it's always possible for software to malfunction, or for a computer to get a virus. New technology like self-driving cars will need to be tested for years to eliminate any "kinks" that could put motorists' lives at risk.

There is also the issue of consumers not accepting a totally self-driving car. The idea of not being in control might be daunting, which may be why that all the current self-driving cars, with the exception of Google’s cutesy design, are cars with classic control mechanisms, like steering wheels and brake pedals. It’s likely that these controls will be preserved for a good amount of time, even in commercially available self-driving cars.

What This Means for Your Personal Injury Practice

So while the future for auto accident cases with self-driving cars is unclear, it’s still likely that auto accident cases will be a profitable practice area for many years to come. After all, self-driving cars don’t eliminate all traditional cars in traffic, or drivers that take control of their automated cars when they should not.

When it comes down to it, your firm can rest easy when it comes to self-driving vehicles affecting your practice. So, if your firm is looking to add to its personal injury caseload, give us all call today at 617-800-0089. We’d love to discuss how to boost your firm’s profitability with legal lead generation.