While driving to my office this morning I heard an interesting legal question posed on NPR’s Morning Edition by Cory Turner, that could someday have immense legal implications in automobile related injury claims: “If A Driverless Car Crashes, Who’s Liable?”

Computer technology and automated vehicles will likely lead to greater safety on the roads, but what price or sacrifice will consumers have to pay in order for this technology to come to the market? Will consumer rights be limited in favor of automobile manufacturers and insurance companies desire to limit their exposure?

There is no question that there will likely be glitches along the way as no technology is perfect. As a reminder, just this week Subaru issued a 50,000 car recall because some of its cars were starting on their own and last year Toyota dealt with stuck accelerators thought to cause some cars to speed out of control. If you have seen the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey” and know about the super computer HAL 9000 that was supposed to be foolproof and incapable of failure or the Terminator movies, you are likely skeptical of the promises of perfect technology. So, the question for automated vehicles is “What and when will it go wrong?”

As technology creeps more and more into the operation of vehicles it may become less clear who is responsible for any injuries caused.  It could be the driver/occupant, the car manufacturer, the manufacturer of some part or software, or some combination. So this begs the question: How do we prove who is the responsible party?

Vehicles have been equipped with “black boxes” for a long time that act as event data recorders and have been used by attorneys to reconstruct collisions and prove or disprove liability, and I anticipate that just as automated car technology improves and we move toward driverless vehicles, car event data recording devices will and must keep pace to help determine what happened during the collision or event and what part or software is to blame, so the responsible party or parties will be held accountable.

You can hear the radio story and view NPR’s blog and comments on the subject at Morning Edition.