When self-driving vehicles crash, who's to blame?

Stop me if you’ve heard this one.

Why did the police officer cross the road?

To jump off his motorcycle and flee to safety before the autopiloted car could strike.

The car reportedly was on autopilot — at least that’s what the Tesla driver told investigating officers.

Phoenix police can’t really confirm that the driver wasn’t in control and probably never will get to the bottom of it.

It was such a minor incident, and no probe is planned.

By collision standards, last week’s incident involving a Tesla Model X and a Phoenix police officer barely qualified for a police report. There were no injuries, no damages. Sgt. Alan Pfohl, a Phoenix police spokesman, called the contact between the two vehicles a “tap.”

But the driver’s allegation opens the door to questions in the emerging and still-murky legal realm of automated and driver-assisted vehicles.

An accident involving an Uber self-driving car and a vehicle turning left in front of it in Tempe raised more issues.

The Arizona Republic asked a series of questions about the future of these cars and what their presence on the road could mean for driver and manufacturer liability. A series of experts provided answers.

Are cars really driving themselves right now?

Kind of. To get a general idea of where technology stands and what it’s capable of, take a look at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Society of Automotive Engineers’ six levels of driving automation. Zero denotes full human control and five is a fully autonomous vehicle. One is generally considered cruise control, and two, “partial automation,” is about the limit of technology on roadways today, according to the society.

These cars have the capabilities to intelligently steer, accelerate and decelerate. The human driver, however, is expected to fully monitor the driving environment and “perform all remaining aspects of the dynamic driving task,” according to SAE’s definition.

When an automated or driver-assisted vehicle causes an accident, who is at fault? Car or driver?

Where technology stands today — at level two or below — it’s the driver, said Bryant Walker Smith, an assistant law professor at the University of South Carolina.

“Anything that’s below level 3, it’s clearly a human that’s supposed to be doing part of the driving,” Smith said.

Smith, who recently authored a 74-page report on automated driving and product liability, stressed that liability isn’t a binary concept. There can be multiple parties at fault in any given collision, and multiple parties can be sued.

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But it should be noted, he said, that the vast majority of crashes are caused by human error. And many crashes involving driver-assisted cars are caused by the other vehicle.

Automated cars are forecast to reduce the likelihood of human error, making driving much safer than it is today.

But as cars become more and more autonomous, Smith said, it is believed that liability will shift from driver to car.

“Which means that, in the future, if automated driving is in fact safer, then manufacturers will bear a greater share,” he said. “Manufacturers will have hopefully a bigger slice of a smaller pie of the total crashes.”

If an autonomous or driver-assisted car breaks the law, does the driver get a citation?

In the future, automated cars likely will be programmed not to speed, run lights or commit other common traffic offenses.

Kevin Biesty, deputy director for policy for the Arizona Department of Transportation, said in cars with dual modes, it’s going to be a matter for law enforcement to investigate whether car or human is in control of the vehicle.

But if it’s in autonomous mode, where would the citation go? What does it mean to be in control? Can you still be cited for a DUI?

These are questions that Biesty said are ripe for court consideration.

“These are things that, in my opinion, are going to be decided by case law,” he said.

Will autonomous car drivers get special licenses?

Not necessarily, Biesty said. To date, there are no special drivers’ licenses for driver-assisted vehicles. Rather, there could be some instructions given by the dealership, just like they would offer for any advanced feature on a new car.

Biesty said more of the driving regulations, however, could shift to from driver to car, and therefore from state to federal government.  It’s the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that currently approves new technologies in vehicles, and Biesty said this protocol shift likely could continue as technology advances.

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Eventually, Biesty said, this could strip state motor vehicle departments of one of their core functions — licensing drivers.

“There are numerous conversations going on, about, ‘At what point does the MVD become a registration of vehicles and an identification agency?” Biesty said.

Will autonomous cars be specially marked, or get special license plates? 

“At this point we don’t really see a need for it, specifically for our department,” Biesty said.

However, there’s a possibility that other agencies may want to distinguish these vehicles from others.

Biesty noted that this was the case when alternative fuel vehicles emerged. It was the first responders who asked for these designations since there would be differences in how to deal with an electric vehicle versus gasoline.

“But for right now,” Biesty said, “nobody has asked.”

More questions? Submit them as a story comment, and The Republic will try to get them answered.