Car insurers recoil in horror from paying auto autos' speeding fines Red Dwarf's Kryten has told Parliament that electric cars of the future could be charged from LED lampposts – while insurers have flinched at the idea that they might have to pay speeding fines on behalf of naughty self-driving vehicles. British insurance companies don't mind paying out for driverless car traffic accidents, as …
> "So I'm liable for my Volkswagon exceeding CO2 emissions?"
Yes, you are, you are responsible for ensuring your vehicle is fit to operate on the road.
Similarly if I have an escalator in my shop that goes so fast it launches grannies two foot in the air off the top, that's my problem too.
People are starting to get very strange ideas of who is responsible for their machines.
> People are starting to get very strange ideas of who is responsible for their machines.
Whilst I'm all for people taking responsibility for their actions, it is morally unconscionable to hold someone responsible for something for which they cannot reasonably be aware of. In the UK it is essentially impossible for a private citizen to know what emissions their car is producing, because no-one provides the service to the public (I believe there are 3 companies offering PEMS rental, and only 1 will deal with the public). You might as well put police/VOSA at every Nissan garage and pull everyone driving a brand nee Qashqai off the forecourt (or in fact, almost any diesel on the road - I'm sure it actually applies to a lot of petrol's too).
What you're saying (effectively), is that if I (hypothetically) buy rat poison which is marketed as safe for human consumption*, it's tested by the Food Standards Agency an acredited as such**, but the manufacturer had incorporated an undetected fatal-to-humans component in it***, then I'd be liable for my neighbour's child eating it and dying. Which is patently absurd.
* analogous to car manufacturer's marketing blurb
** analogous to EURO certification
*** analogous to defeat device
So I'm liable for my Volkswagon exceeding CO2 emissions?
The VW scandal concerned NOx, not CO2, which is important because NOx has a legal maximum limit (analagous to a speed limit) whereas CO2 is just used as a tax lever by governments.
Whether you're liable will probably depend on how the law is written. It it says that you can't drive a car with emissions above a certain level then yes, you're liable (but will have a very good claim against VW for selling unfit goods). If the law simply says that it's not legal to sell cars that exceed the limits then you're probably not liable.
It's not really the same issue as speeding. Consider the current situation with a hire car. If you get stopped for speeding, you'll get fined. If you're caught by a camera the notice goes to the owner (the rental car agency) and there's always small print in the contract which says that they will pass your name as driver to the authorities, and if you don't pay they will bill the fine plus an "administrative charge" to your credit card. I think it likely that the same approach will be applied to autonomous vehicles, the "registered keeper" will be the end of the line for the ticket.
So, you mean the leasing companies then?
If you change 'owner' to 'registered keeper' then you might have a case but I'd be rightly miffed if I got three points on my license for my speeding car if I was on the other side of the world...
The idea of self-driving/autonomous cars is that the car will go where it is told so it could be sent to pick up little Jimmy and Jockasta from school with no adult in the car.
Future cars probably won't even have a steering wheel.
Then there is the whole 'car sharing' thing.
Who is liable then eh?
Because it's Britain, and the joyless shitpails who run the country (of which MPs are just a sub-set.. see also councils, quangos, pressure groups and the perpetually offended) decide everything on the basis of: how miserable, coerced, and fleeced can we make the populace? What remnants of light and joy and self-determination and freedom can we stamp out next?
Who is liable for dictating the speed limit? Will some human make the decision based on how they're feeling that day? Based on some stuff they learned from someone else, who observed it from a flawed survey. Will it be static or will it be vary by day/time/traffic /school holidays/etc.
Before we answer who is liable to pay the speed limit we should ask what the speed limit is and whether it's different for human drivers, and autonomous cars. Human drivers are usually great at doing many things but bad at each specific thing, especially concentrating on more than one thing at a single time. Autonomous cars can't do many things human drivers can, but they could potentially be great at a core set of tasks and could be Observing all around the car.
Observing the speed limit is one thing. Setting the speed limit is another.
Reply to: I'm also curious why insurance companies appear to be dictating the law, I had this daft idea that parliament and not companies were supposed to draft legislation.
Gosh yes. Next thing you know other people with subject expertise will be telling parliamentarians that the laws of mathematics won't change just because they stomp their foot. Or that the internet is not a series of tubes. Can't have that sort of carry on.
> "So I'm liable for my Volkswagon exceeding CO2 emissions"
> unfortunately yes. if vosa pull you over, test your car, find it non compliant then the driver is fined and > handed a defect notice.
MOT & roadside emissions testing for diesels is on smoke density, though (or it was when mine was spot-checked ... on the way back from an MOT ...) ...
> as wrong as this is (as the car was bought new and serviced in good faith).
Agreed.
If your not driving it then you are just a passenger, and the car could have many passengers in it so there would be no way, by law, for the police to determine which passenger was at fault.
The car and it's autonomous AI would be at fault and therefore the insurance firm would need to pay and would have telemetry to prove it was driving, what speed and GPS history.
"Conservative MP Sir Oliver Letwin asked what would happen if a self-driving car was "slow in responding to a change in signage", using the example of a smart motorway with editable speed limits."
Surely there's a 'grace period' of about a thirty seconds (or whatever) before any new speed limit violations will trigger a recorded offence? If not, why not?
The trick is to use an example to prove the point.
The insurers want to take no responsibility for the car's speed.
So when the system fails, the GPS is out, the road map is inaccurate, a new road is put in, a speed limit on an existing road is changed, or there are roadworks - they want no part of it.
Asking the question shows that. They'll be overruled anyway. But it shows them that they'll have to take account of things like that, and insure it, whether they like it or not. Ask any insurer if they want to cover you using candles responsibly at home, they'll say no. The fact is they don't get to specify things down to that level of detail and need to take into account that people will do that anyway.
> Do you know an insurer who would insure a human driver for speeding fines ?
I think this is why I'm having such trouble following the line of reasoning. Insurers have never covered you for breaking the law. If you are driving an unregistered vehicle and have an accident, your insurer won't pay out. Same if you are driving at an unsafe speed for the conditions or under the influence of a substance (prescribed or otherwise). They are not about to start now.
They will insure you against fire, theft, damage caused by another party etc. At most, they may accept to charge back to Ford/Toyota/BMW/whoever. The manufacturers themselves may have public liability insurance specifically to handle Takata scale recalls but carrying the can for this isn't something that retail insurance would want a bar of.
What, and miss out on all that lovely revenue?
Don't worry, they'll follow the fine principles of ex-North Wales Chief Constable Richard Brunstrom (he of the infamous "that guy we caught doing 31mph in a 30 zone* is no better than a teenage vandal and should shut up and admit his guilt") when designing this. Just be grateful that the speed limit signs aren't in a locked filing cabinet in a disused lavatory behind a sign saying "beware of the leopard", etc.
*-because the guy in question was overtaking a slow-moving tractor, as I recall.
Just be grateful that the speed limit signs aren't in a locked filing cabinet...
It's an interesting point whether the displayed speed limit sign is the definitive legal limit, or that is the speed limit assigned by the local authority ?
If somebody puts up a fake speed limit sign or a variable one malfunctions are you currently responsible ?
"Surely there's a 'grace period' of about a thirty seconds (or whatever) before any new speed limit violations will trigger a recorded offence? If not, why not?"
According to a friend* who was invited to a 'naughty step' course in lieu of a speeding ticket the cameras are armed 12 seconds after the signs are changed.
* honest...
the insurer will end up paying the fine. your premium will include a fee to do so. no different from the legal fee coverage part of some policies.
cant see the hoohaa insurers are making. any extras they are mandated to do will simply cost us more on our premiums :(
I'm torn between saying that it should be obvious that the driver should pay the fine, and should the "driver" be the computer then liability sits with the legal entity who wrote and supplied the software.
However, it then occoured that should you say that the insurers should pay then insurance premiums for autonomous cars would go up to pay for all of the autonomous speeding tickets, which would make them cost ineffective to own.
It'll go this way in the end - with either our insurance, the manufacturer's insurance or the bot-developer's insurance covering it.
Insurance is little more than gambling. However for those who noticed that the insurance groups are setting the rules in parliament this is because they have a lot of money... a very large amount of money indeed (they are usually effectively owned by the banks). These groups do not like to lose their bets. Ever. Therefore the bets they take are considerably hedged in their favour and the law of the land has been amended to support this.
Presumably once there are a number of autonomous vehicles on the road, any variable signage would be updated to unambiguously communicate with them - e.g. bluetoth / wifi / short range beacons with an ID for that gps position, published to all satnav makers, so that the car could receive the speed data, and know it came from a legit sign.
"Perhaps the idea of changing speed limits on the fly is just stupid ?"
For human drivers? No. Slowing down the traffic a few miles before an incident or just heavy and slow traffic works because you don'y get so many people arriving at the back of the queue quite so quickly. With mainly autonomous cars, speed limits per se may not even be necessary since they hopefully will all be online and communicating.
"Perhaps the idea of changing speed limits on the fly is just stupid ?"
No variable speed limits are not stupid... Forget motorways for a minute... There are three primary schools near my home, each of these has a 20mph limit outside it. Two of these schools are on busy roads so it makes sense to reduce the speed when the kids are out and about, but between 9.30am and 3pm there are no kids out of school so the limit goes back up to a 30 on one road and a 40 on the other... Similarly after 5pm the kids have all gone home so there is no need for the limit to be lower.
All that is needed is CLEAR SIGNAGE for drivers (Though to be honest if you can get above 10mph at pick up and drop off time near a school I'd be amazed!)
Going back to motorways the idea is that if you follow the posted limits it makes your journey faster as you dont end up getting caught up in miles and miles of traffic as you slow down slightly and the blockage is (theoretically) clear before you get there.. In my experience following the posted limit on the Mway does indeed lead to a much less stressful driving experience.. if we could all follow the posted limits and kill off the middle lane hoggers doing 65 and taking 10 minutes to overtake a lorry driving on the motorway would be much less stressful.
"Surely there's a 'grace period' of about a thirty seconds (or whatever) before any new speed limit violations will trigger a recorded offence? If not, why not?"
Yes, there is a delay before the speed cameras react to the new lower limit. If you just passed a variable speed limit sign which sets a lower limit, you won't know until you see the next sign and as far as you are concerned the new lower limit doesn't apply until you reach that sign.
How long before pranksters start posting fake speed limit signs? Bonus points to them if they make them only visible in infrared light (e.g., They might be a sale ad, or some other kind of advertisement in visible light, with the speed limit appearing in infrared.).
Hmm, if such a fake speed limit sign indicates that the speed limit is 1,080,000,000 km/hour (e.g., 3E8 m/s), will the car try to break the speed of light? Might be just as entertaining to make the speed limit 1 km/hour.
Anon Y. Mous
"Doors ripped open"
I dont for a minute think that would happen... for a start car doors can be locked - every car Ive had since my shitty austin metro got nicked have automatically locked them selves when the car starts driving.
Secondly... would it be sensible to steal an autonomous car? What would the purpose be? Joy riding? Resale? You'd have to be pretty confident in your technical abilities to *quickly* disable any "return to home"/"Drive to the nearest police station with the doors deadlocked" functionality!
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