Transportation Law Commons^™

Driving Together: The Necessity Of A Comprehensive Federal Response For The Success Of Autonomous Vehicles, Timothy Buff

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

Today’s world is full of promising yet controversial new technologies. Large Language Models (LLMs), such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, have both promised fantastic results and generated a range of critiques. Quantum computing claims to be able to complete computations that would take traditional computers, even supercomputers, longer than the lifespan of the universe to complete. With such advancements, the future dreamed of in science fiction stories of the twentieth century seems to be becoming reality. Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) are another notable technology, which promise to ultimately remove any human responsibility, and hence any human error, from the process of driving a …

Governance In The Absence Of Government, Tracy Hresko Pearl

Faculty Articles

Artificial intelligence (AI) is advancing at an unprecedented pace, with generative systems exerting growing influence over social, economic, and political life. While Al offers opportunities for innovation and efficiency, it also poses risks ranging from misinformation and job displacement to existential threats if highly autonomous systems evade human control. Across industry, government, and civil society, there is broad consensus that Al requires oversight.

Yet traditional U.S. regulatory approaches face six significant barriers: (1) technology outpacing legislation, (2) limited Al expertise among policymakers, (3) regulatory capture, (4) political gridlock, (5) outdated governance structures, and (6) the inherent complexity of Al. Combined …

Lawbreaker: An Approach For Specifying Traffic Laws And Fuzzing Autonomous Vehicles, Yang Sun, Christopher M. Poskitt, Jun Sun, Yuqi Chen, Zijiang Yang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Autonomous driving systems (ADSs) must be tested thoroughly before they can be deployed in autonomous vehicles. High-fidelity simulators allow them to be tested against diverse scenarios, including those that are difficult to recreate in real-world testing grounds. While previous approaches have shown that test cases can be generated automatically, they tend to focus on weak oracles (e.g. reaching the destination without collisions) without assessing whether the journey itself was undertaken safely and satisfied the law. In this work, we propose LawBreaker, an automated framework for testing ADSs against real-world traffic laws, which is designed to be compatible with different scenario …

Autonomous Vehicles: Regulatory Challenges And The Response From Germany And Uk, Antonios E. Kouroutakis

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

Hands Off The Wheel: The Role Of Law In The Coming Extinction Of Human-Driven Cars, Tracy Hresko Pearl

Faculty Articles

Law and technology scholars have been writing about the coming release of fully autonomous vehicles for quite some time, and yet there is a significant gap in that literature. The United States has experienced a technology-driven upheaval in transportation once already, and it did so almost exactly 100 years ago when society transitioned (surprisingly rapidly) from horses to automobiles. No legal scholar has, as of yet, explored that transition at any length and asked what it can teach us about the role law and lawmaking should play in the coming transition between human-driven and fully autonomous vehicles. This is a …

Let’S Be Reasonable: The Consumer Expectations Test Is Simply Not Viable To Determine Design Defect For Complex Autonomous Vehicle Technology, Emily Frascaroli, John Isaac Southerland, Elizabeth Davis, Woods Parker

Journal of Law and Mobility

Although highly automated vehicles (“HAVs”) have potential to reduce deaths and injuries from traffic crashes, product liability litigation for design defects in vehicles incorporating autonomous technology is inevitable. During the early stages of implementation, courts and juries will be forced to grapple with the application of traditional product liability principles to a never before experienced category of highly technical products. Recent decisions limiting the use of the consumer expectations test in cases involving complex products prompted the authors to examine more closely the history behind and the future viability of the consumer expectations test in HAV litigation.

The Road To The Future: A Regulatory Regime For The Rise Of The Robot Cars, Daniel Spencer

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

Autonomy In The Age Of Autonomous Vehicles, Michael Mattioli

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This essay describes intertwined policy challenges related to autonomous vehicle data. The policy goals of promoting privacy, safety, competition, and commerce are all so deeply intertwined, I conclude, that they must be understood and addressed together. This essay does not attempt to solve the problem. Instead, it presents a descriptive snapshot of the current state of play in the industry and closes by raising a set of questions. I hope these questions will prompt useful discussions among policy experts and the public.

Jailbreak!: What Happens When Autonomous Vehicle Owners Hack Into Their Own Cars, Michael Sinanian

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Autonomous and connected vehicles (ACVs) are a transformational force for humanity. It is highly likely that some owners of ACVs will circumvent their vehicle software to expose unauthorized functionality, known as “jailbreaking”. This would trigger copyright liability, the extent of which would be dependent upon the copyright system’s various rulemaking processes and common law interpretations. This note explores the world of software “jailbreaking”, with its roots in smartphone unlocking, and extrapolates that to ACVs. Some compelling (and at times dangerous) scenarios are contemplated, and recommendations are made for consumers, technologists, manufacturers, and policy makers.

New Threats To Vehicle Safety: How Cybersecurity Policy Will Shape The Future Of Autonomous Vehicles, Caleb Kennedy

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

This note assesses the threat that hacking and related cybersecurity issues will pose to autonomous vehicles. Given the sweeping safety benefits autonomous vehicles will potentially bring to society, protecting against hacking and cyber-threats must be one of the top priorities for industry and public safety officials if autonomous vehicles are to gain widespread acceptance in the market. It proposes a framework for how these concerns should be addressed and how we can mitigate the risks. It addresses both proactive and reactive measures that can be taken by manufacturers, how to incentivize these measures, and the role cyber-insurance can play in …

A Survey Of Legal Issues Arising From The Deployment Of Autonomous And Connected Vehicles, Daniel A. Crane, Kyle D. Logue, Bryce C. Pilz

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

With concerns rising over the number and variety of state regulations, companies are increasingly looking to the federal government for guidance. Representatives from Google, GM, Lyft, and Delphi testified before Congress on March 15, urging Congress to pass a federal law concerning autonomous vehicles. While the passage of any federal legislation is unclear at this time, other parts of the federal government have been extremely active in recent months. In January 2016, the Obama administration proposed a 10-year, $4 billion investment in autonomous vehicle technology. In that same announcement, the Department of Transportation (“DOT”) committed to developing model state policy …

Robocar Risks, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

Suggests that policymakers should not widen roads or stringently enforce anti-jaywalking laws in order to accommodate autonomous vehicles.

Fast & Furious: The Misregulation Of Driverless Cars, Tracy Hresko Pearl

Faculty Articles

The United States is on the cusp of a revolution in transportation. The sale and widespread use of both semi-autonomous and fully autonomous vehicles, also known as “driverless cars,” are both imminent and likely to significantly change the way in which citizens commute, interact, and travel. While there is substantial concern amongst state lawmakers and the general public about the overall safety and desirability of these vehicles, experts predict that fully autonomous cars will dramatically improve highway safety, reduce traffic, increase productivity, and enhance the independence of individuals who are unable to obtain licenses. Lawmakers, however, motivated by irrational fears …

Technological Opacity, Predictability, And Self-Driving Cars, Harry Surden, Mary-Anne Williams

Publications

Autonomous or “self-driving” cars are vehicles that drive themselves without human supervision or input. Because of safety benefits that they are expected to bring, autonomous vehicles are likely to become more common. Notably, for the first time, people will share a physical environment with computer-controlled machines that can both direct their own activities and that have considerable range of movement. This represents a distinct change from our current context. Today people share physical spaces either with machines that have free range of movement, but are controlled by people (e.g. automobiles) or with machines that are controlled by computers, but highly …

Autonomous Vehicle Law Report And Recommendations To The Ulc Based On Existing State Av Laws, The Ulc's Final Report, And Our Own Conclusions About What Constitutes A Complete Law, University Of Washington Technology Law And Public Policy Clinic

Technology Law and Public Policy Clinic

This report was created by the University of Washington’s Technology Law and Policy Clinic for the Uniform Law Commission (ULC). It was created at the request of Robert Lloyd, Professor of Law at the University of Tennessee and a member of the ULC’s subcommittee for autonomous vehicles. The report aims to do three things: (1) present the existing autonomous vehicle provisions on the books in California, Michigan, Florida, Nevada, and Washington, D.C.; (2) analyze these provisions, address related questions raised in the ULC’s Final Report, and make recommendations to the ULC; and (3) offer draft provision language to illustrate our …

Automated Vehicles, James Barker, Nicholas Pleasants, Shudan Zhu, Peter Montine, Rachel Wilka

Technology Law and Public Policy Clinic

No abstract provided.