The Foundation of Civil Liability for Accidents including Autonomous Vehicles: A Comparative Study

With the deployment of automated systems and artificial intelligence technology growing in the auto sector, the shift from a human driving vehicle to an autonomous vehicle (AV) may pose challenges and questions for politicians, legislators, lawyers, industries, and even consumers. One of the challenges is where a practitioner or consumer of an AV confronts legislation. An accident that involves an AV would raise issues for which laws have not been adjusted. The requisite foundation of liability is the issue that this research pursues to discover. This research explores the newest efforts in the forerunner countries compared with Iranian laws to illuminate uncertainties such as who should be liable, if and to what extent manufacturers are liable, and how a proper liability regime should be designed. While the operator liability seems to be efficient for the first three levels of autonomy, in the last three levels where the operator is not as engaged as before, the product liability may provide a defendable foundation of liability. However, with the defective tests currently in use, it seems more justifiable to hold manufacturers strictly liable. This article provides legal literature and asks precise questions for future works to ultimately establish a liability foundation for automated technologies. Document Type: Research Paper.