The Atlantic

Can You Sue a Robocar?

A pedestrian killed by a self-driving Uber in Tempe shows that the legal implications of autonomous cars are as important, if not more so, than the technology.
Source: Tempe Police Department / AP

On Sunday night, a self-driving car operated by Uber struck and killed a pedestrian, 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg, on North Mill Avenue in Tempe, Arizona. It appears to be the first time an automobile driven by a computer has killed a human being by force of impact. The car was traveling at 38 miles per hour.

An initial investigation by Tempe police indicated that the pedestrian might have been at fault. According to that report, Herzberg appears to have come “from the shadows,” stepping off the median into the roadway, and ending up in the path of the car while jaywalking across the street. The National Transportation Safety Board has also opened an investigation. It’s still hard to know exactly what took place, at this time, without some speculation.

Likewise, it’s difficult to evaluate what this accident means for the future of autonomous cars. Crashes, injuries, and fatalities were a certainty as driverless vehicles began moving from experiment to reality. In 2016, a Tesla operating in its unique “autopilot” mode in Florida crashed into a tractor-trailer that made a left turn in front of the vehicle, killing the Tesla’s driver. At the time, it was the first known fatality from a self-driving vehicle—but at the time of the accident, the car had apparently been warning its driver to disengage the autopilot mode and take control of the vehicle.

Advocates of autonomy tend to cite overall improvements to, and both fully and partially autonomous cars could improve that number substantially—particularly by reducing injury and death from speeding and drunk driving. Even so, crashes, injuries, and fatalities when and if self-driving cars are ubiquitous. Robocars will crash into one another occasionally and, as the incident in Tempe illustrates, they will collide with pedestrians and bicyclists, too. Overall, eventually, those figures will likely number far fewer than the 37,461 people in car crashes in America in 2016.

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Atlantic

The Atlantic4 min read
Private Equity Has Its Eyes on the Child-Care Industry
Updated at 1:30 p.m. ET on February 22, 2024. Last June, years of organizing in Vermont paid off when the state’s House and Senate passed landmark legislation—overriding a governor’s earlier veto—that invests $125 million a year into its child-care s
The Atlantic5 min readSocial History
The Pro-life Movement’s Not-So-Secret Plan for Trump
Sign up for The Decision, a newsletter featuring our 2024 election coverage. Donald Trump has made no secret of the fact that he regards his party’s position on reproductive rights as a political liability. He blamed the “abortion issue” for his part
The Atlantic4 min readAmerican Government
How Democrats Could Disqualify Trump If the Supreme Court Doesn’t
Near the end of the Supreme Court’s oral arguments about whether Colorado could exclude former President Donald Trump from its ballot as an insurrectionist, the attorney representing voters from the state offered a warning to the justices—one evoking

Related Books & Audiobooks