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SINGAPORE: Imagine this. You are in a driverless private hire vehicle that’s ferrying you to work. As the vehicle drives itself, you take a nap in the backseat.
Suddenly, you are awakened by a loud thud and the sound of glass shattering. You come to your senses, and realise that the car has hit a pedestrian who is now lying motionless.
All this happened while you were asleep, without any human input on how the vehicle manoeuvred or behaved. In such a case, whose fault is it, and who should be held accountable for the injuries or fatalities sustained?
These questions are not the domain of science fiction. Already questions about fault and accountability for driverless cars are being asked. Uber had to deal with them in March this year when one of their self-driving vehicles in Arizona struck and killed a woman on the street as it was operating autonomously.
While the Arizonian incident happened far away, autonomous vehicles (AVs) are slowly becoming a reality in Singapore’s transport landscape. This means that these very same issues could very well surface here in our near future.
Despite these challenges, the potential of AVs is clear. The global market for AVs is expected to reach US$42 billion by 2025, with more than 30 companies worldwide already known to have invested heavily in the necessary R&D.
Locally, at least 10 companies and research institutions are currently involved in AV trials. Some of the more well-known pilots around the island are the driverless bus pilot in Nanyang Technological University and the NuTonomy taxi trial – which incidentally also met with an accident two years ago – in one-north.
As Singapore prepares to welcome autonomous vehicles on its roads, car owners are wondering how insurance policies and their premiums might respond to the growth of the AV population here – both in terms of owning and operating one and the implications of being involved in an incident with one.
(CNA)
