When cars park themselves…

Insurance Companies vs Cars That Can Park Themselves

With technology moving forward more and more with each passing day, it’s no surprise that every new car released is equipped with more automated features and crash-avoidance technology than ever before. But with cars that can park themselves, among their many new talents, how does this affect drivers and insurers?

The Pros And Cons Of Cars That Can Park Themselves

Many cars can now ‘sense’ how far other objects are from it ensuring enough space between vehicles on the freeway as well as providing parking assistance. All of which is designed to reduce the number of fender benders and crashes, to the extent that it’s commonly known as ‘crash-prevention technology’. But now companies have moved on to creating cars that can park themselves and even self-driving cars. It’s important to remember that technology is not infallible, it requires constant maintenance and updates to keep it working as it should. Therefore, it is simply not possible to prevent accidents entirely. This technology throws up a whole host of legal questions, resulting in a hot debate: Will this advancement result in less accidents or simply make it more difficult to assign blame for accidents?

What Law Says

The law already sets in stone a lot of rules about cars, especially about who’s allowed to drive them, and answering all the legal questions about driverless cars could take years to solve. Many questions need to be considered, for example: when a self-driving or self-parking car is involved in an accident, who’s liable for the damages? As it stands, from an insurance perspective, ultimately the driver is responsible for the operation of their vehicle in any given situation. In spite of the many potential benefits of such technology, legal questions are becoming the self-driving car’s biggest obstacle to overcome.

One argument is that as such technology becomes standard equipment, insurers can judge whether or not it reduces the frequency and the cost of accidents. But on the other hand, it could lead to an increase in product liability claims from people involved in traffic accidents, namely that they blame the manufacturer or suppliers for what went wrong instead of their own behavior. Liability laws need to be discussed further to ensure that technological advantages in self-driving vehicles are not banned altogether, but for the time being, the driver is still responsible for the actions and operations of his/her vehicle and it doesn’t look like that will change any time soon.