If there is a car accident with assisted driving, should the car company compensate?

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The popularity of assisted driving is increasing, and cars with assisted driving can be bought in the early 100,000s. But the question also arises, if driving assisted driving is involved in a car accident, who is responsible? Should car companies compensate?

Car accidents caused by assisted driving

Frequent hot searches

On August 10, 2022, on the elevated road of Ningbo Airport in Zhejiang Province, a Xpeng P7 crashed into a car parked in front of it at high speed, and a staff member behind the car was knocked into the air.

Afterwards, the traffic police said that the P7 was using the assisted driving function at that time, and was just in time for the hit vehicle to stop illegally for operation, and the owner said that his P7 did not slow down at all before the crash.

Just recently, according to the news of an ideal L9 owner, when it was driving at 113km/h on the highway, there was a vehicle in front of the right that slowly changed lanes, but the L9 equipped with lidar did not react and brake, and finally the owner himself stepped on the brakes, but still hit the front car at a speed of 100km/h because the brakes were not timely.

However, the CEO of Ideal Auto also responded to the accident, and it remains to be finally investigated as to whose responsibility it is. However, it is an indisputable fact that accidents due to assisted driving frequently rush to the hot search.

In 2021, when a catering entrepreneur was driving NIO ES8, he turned on the NOP (Pilot Assist Function), and unfortunately died in an accident.

As for Tesla, whether at home or abroad, the number of accidents and hot searches due to assisted driving functions is uncountable.

There is a lot of controversy

But the responsibility is all on the owner

Although the car accidents caused by these assisted driving have attracted a lot of attention and netizens have discussed them very hotly, few people continue to track the development of the accident. Generally speaking, as hot news, the attention on the Internet has passed for a few days.

So have car companies been judged to be liable for compensation? According to statistics, among the similar accidents that have occurred since 2015, none of the accidents have been borne by car companies, and all similar accidents are ultimately borne by drivers.

The reason is simple, because the existing laws of the country do not clarify the legal status of "assisted driving". According to the current law, the driver is the person with driving qualifications, and a certain system, a certain car itself, is not qualified to control and drive the vehicle at all. Not even qualified to drive, let alone take responsibility.

In fact, although we can distinguish between cars with assisted driving and cars without assisted driving, in the current traffic law, there is no such distinction, and the liability is all based on traditional cars.

Is there really no way to take the car company?

So if you say so, is there really no way to take the car company? If you drive an autonomous driving car in an accident, can you only admit that you are unlucky? Actually, it's not, there is still a way.

There are two main methods, one is to see whether there are hardware or software problems with these assisted driving functions, that is, when these assisted driving functions should have played a role, but there are quality problems, then of course the car company should compensate the owner.

For example, the sensational Tesla brake door, whether the "brake equipment" has quality problems at that time has become the focus of controversy.

In addition to hardware, if there is a problem in the software, consumers can also make a claim to the car company.

The second way is to see whether the car company's publicity process has wrong and exaggerated guidance. For example, whether car companies exaggerate assisted driving as "automatic driving", thereby misguiding car owners.

Or the sales staff of the 4S store, when introducing the assisted driving function, is it exaggerated, so that the owner really thinks that he can relax his vigilance.

If consumers can really prove these two items, it is very likely that the car company will lose the lawsuit and get compensation.

Car companies are playing tricky by evading responsibility

However, for the above two items, we thought of it, and car companies have already thought of it. In particular, the first one proves that there are hardware or software problems with the assisted driving functions of car companies, which is not easy for consumers. Even for professional third-party testing agencies, it is not easy.

The reason is simple, only the car companies themselves really grasp the background data, and consumers or testing agencies simply cannot prove whether the data taken out by the car companies is true. Therefore, if you want to use the data provided by the car company itself to prove that the car company's assisted driving system has a bug, this matter does not logically make sense.

This is also why Tesla has repeatedly appeared "acceleration doors" and "brake doors", but we have not heard of any cases of really losing Tesla and letting Tesla compensate the owner.

Regarding the second point, it is becoming more and more difficult to grasp the handle of excessive publicity of car companies. In the early days, car companies over-publicized it was indeed very common, and at that time the Internet was generally ridiculed, these car companies called "automatic driving" before selling cars, and called "assisted driving" after an accident.

However, with the increasing number of assisted driving accidents, car companies are becoming more and more cautious in publicity. The word "autopilot" is barely visible now.

Not to mention, many car companies still list in the user manual in detail the use of auxiliary driving functions specifications and warnings. In the user manual of Xpeng P7, there are up to 52 warnings for the use of ACC+LCC (adaptive cruise + lane centering assist).

2020 Xpeng P7 Owner's Manual

Similarly, in the Model 3 owner's manual, it is also stated that active cruise control is an auxiliary function, the owner's hands cannot be taken off the steering wheel, and the attention must always be on driving, ready to take corrective measures quickly.

Model 3 owner's manual

Realistically speaking, these tips from manufacturers are indeed necessary. However, I think these words should not only be written in the user manual, because few people really read them. The sales of each 4S store should be popularized with customers. However, when sales talk about assisted driving, it's all about making driving easier.

Therefore, car companies only write these warnings in the user manual, not only to remind users, but also to avoid responsibility.

Is there really no way to take the car company?

Having said all this, back to the question at the beginning, at this stage, assisted driving accidents are frequent, can car companies really stay out of the matter and take no responsibility?

Once an individual car owner has a similar accident and needs to face the car company to claim compensation, the owner is an all-round weakness in front of the car company, the car company has a legal team, some is time, or the only party that has the real data in the background, so at this time consumers rely only on the law.

It will take time for national laws to keep up with the development of smart cars, but some local regulations and regulations are more flexible. For example, in August last year, Shenzhen implemented the "Shenzhen Special Economic Zone Intelligent Networked Vehicle Management Regulations", which stipulates that in a traffic accident, if the damage is caused by defects in the intelligent networked vehicle, the owner can claim compensation from the manufacturer and seller after making compensation in accordance with the regulations.

Although it is stipulated that the car owner should compensate first, this regulation also gives the car owner a legal basis to claim directly from the car company, which is also an improvement.

It's the rock of the mountain

Can attack jade

Last year, Mercedes-Benz officially announced that when a model equipped with an L3 Drive Pilot assistant driving system is on the road, as long as the driver turns on this system, Mercedes-Benz will bear legal responsibility for the operation of the car.

Mercedes-Benz's move, who is responsible for the accident caused by the assisted driving system, this world's problem has made a good start. Of course, this system is currently only allowed to be used in some road sections, and Mercedes-Benz has also put forward many restrictions on the use of this L3, such as not being able to use it at night, rain and snow weather, and limiting the use when the speed exceeds 60km/h.

But in any case, Mercedes-Benz was the first to set an example in the world, that is, to take responsibility for the car accidents caused by its own driver assistance systems.

Only in this way can car owners dare to use it with confidence, and more people can use it, and the progress of assisted driving can be promoted.

What's more rare is that when the assisted driver takes over the vehicle, Mercedes-Benz also allows the driver to look ahead without looking ahead, and even distracted to watch a movie on his mobile phone. As long as the driver assistance system issues a warning to take over, the vehicle can be taken over in time.

And this is obviously more in line with the original intention of the assisted driving system, if after turning on assisted driving, you must always observe the road conditions, focus all your energy on driving, then after opening it is more tired than driving yourself, and it loses the meaning of assisted driving.

Write at the end

In fact, there is a paradox in the domestic assisted driving at this stage, that is, the assisted driving is becoming more and more perfect, and even on the high speed can cope with most working conditions, but at the same time, the driver must maintain attention and take over the vehicle at any time.

It's like keeping your attention high all the time, staring at a machine that barely goes wrong, and I don't believe normal people don't lose their minds.

Or to put it another way, the reason why I paid for assisted driving is that it can help me step on the brakes and help me hold the steering wheel when my mind is wandering, but when I lose my mind, the responsibility is all mine.

Of course, as in any field, laws often lag behind social development, and because of the imperfection of laws, in fact, it also provides space for car companies to promote the application of assisted driving. If you have to take responsibility for this from the beginning, it is estimated that no car company dares to promote even L2 assisted driving.

But now at least at the level of L2, the technology has been relatively mature, and even the L3 of many car companies has reached a considerable level. There are more and more cars equipped with Level 2 assisted driving, and it is unfair to award all the responsibility for accidents to the owner.

Therefore, we hope that the law can be improved as soon as possible, and we also hope to see more car companies like Mercedes-Benz take the initiative to take responsibility for their assisted driving.

What do you think about this? Welcome to leave a message to discuss.