Criminal Cars: Attributing Liability For Crashes Caused By Autonomous Vehicles

Abstract

This thesis advances into unchartered [sic] legal territory by exploring whether New Zealand's existing criminal law can appropriately manage the harms expected to arise from autonomous vehicle crashes. There is an emerging consensus that autonomous vehicles will be in production and publicly available in the next five to eight years. Autonomous vehicles will arrive whether society and the law are ready for them or not. The main research questions are: who in the event of a crash involving an autonomous vehicle could be criminally liable under existing New Zealand law; and who, if anyone, should be? In the absence of any case law, a hypothetical scenario is used to analyse how a New Zealand court might respond to the prosecution of a number of potential defendants, including the vehicle occupant, owner, manufacturer, dealer and potentially the regulator following a crash caused by an autonomous vehicle. Civil and consumer protection liability are discussed but not analysed in detail. Conclusions on which defendants are likely to be liable then inform a discussion of to whom and how the law should attribute responsibility. The key finding is that New Zealand's existing criminal law cannot appropriately manage the harms expected to arise from the operation of autonomous vehicles. Without reform criminal liability will be unjustly attributed to the occupant, owner and other potential defendants. Where an autonomous vehicle causes harm through its independent operation it should be responsible for that harm. The best long term solution is for Parliament to legislate to recognise autonomous vehicles as legal persons capable of being held liable for their own actions. However, this is unlikely to happen until autonomous vehicle technology progress to the point that society begins to see autonomous vehicles as blameworthy for the harm they cause. In the meanwhile the operation of autonomous vehicles can be subjected to a licensing and infringement regime.