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Suggested Citation:"==============." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2016. A Look at the Legal Environment for Driverless Vehicles. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/23453.
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Legal Research Digest 69 NATIONAL COOPERATIVE HIGHWAY RESEARCH PROGRAM February 2016 A LOOK AT THE LEGAL ENVIRONMENT FOR DRIVERLESS VEHICLES This report was prepared under NCHRP Project 20-06, Topic 21-01, “Legal Problems Arising Out of Highway Programs,” for which the Transportation Research Board is the agency coordinating the research. The report was prepared by Dorothy J. Glancy, Robert W. Peterson, and Kyle F. Graham, Santa Clara University School of Law, Santa Clara, California. James B. McDaniel, TRB Counsel for Legal Research Projects, was the principal investigator and content editor. The Problem and Its Solution State highway departments and transportation agencies have a continuing need to keep abreast of operating practices and legal elements of specific problems in highway law. This report continues NCHRP’s practice of keeping departments up-to-date on laws that will affect their operations. Applications Sometime within the next decade, driverless vehicles will join conventional vehicles, which are operated by human drivers, on the roads of the United States. How many peo- ple will decide to forego human driving for driverless vehicles is a matter of wide speculation. Many drivers will likely stay with conventional cars for a time. After all, given advancing technology, in the near future conventional vehicles will be highly automated, capable of limited self- driving, partially autonomous, and probably connected. Nevertheless, even if driverless vehicles are adopted only gradually and partially, their introduction onto roadways still will have numerous legal ramifications. How soon and how smoothly driverless vehicles merge onto U.S. roads and highways will depend, in part, on how the legal system resolves the many legal issues implicated by these vehicles. Driverless vehicles will inherit a framework of laws designed for conven- tional vehicles. Some states already have begun to make minor modifications to this framework to account for the unique capabilities and concerns associated with driver- less vehicles. In the future, these intersections of the law and driverless technologies will grow increasingly numerous and complicated. This digest has been prepared to assist policymakers in anticipating, working through, and resolving the legal policy issues that may be associated with driverless vehicles. It provides policymakers with an introduction to how civil and criminal liability may adhere to driver- less vehicles, the implications of these vehicles for privacy and security, how these vehicles are likely to become subject to and potentially alter prevailing auto- mobile insurance regimes, and other related topics. Responsible Senior Program Officer: Gwen Chisholm Smith

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TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Legal Research Digest 69: A Look at the Legal Environment for Driverless Vehicles explores legal policy issues that may be associated with driverless vehicles. It provides an introduction to how civil and criminal liability may adhere to driverless vehicles, the implications of these vehicles for privacy and security, how these vehicles are likely to become subject to and potentially alter prevailing automobile insurance regimes, and other related topics.

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