The thing is .. what happens if a cyclist falls in front of a car with a human driver? Probably the car drives over him and the cyclist dies. The challenge is to do better than that, which is a rather low bar.
People won't see it like that. If a human driver makes a mistake, it's "human error". If a robot driver makes a mistake it's criminal negligence -- because robots are capable of not making mistakes.
In other words, robots are held to a higher standard than humans.
I don't think it's quite that... If a human driver makes a mistake, the driver is liable. If the car makes a mistake, the car manufacturer is liable. This is true today; if you're driving along and you swerve into someone/something, that's your fault. But if your wheel falls off because of a manufacturing defect the car company is going to get sued. The car company faces a much higher liability risk, because they're responsible for ALL of the cars they manufacture, unlike the driver who is responsible for a single car.
It'll be the same with automated driving software. All of the liability for accidents that occur in cars using the software will be concentrated with the software developer, instead of distributed amongst all of the drivers. That might be too much liability to make the business viable.
The good news for us drivers: our insurance rates should drop once the cars are fully automated and manual control isn't even possible. At that point we'll just be passengers, and we shouldn't need to pay insurance.
There's two points about insurance: If you own the car, and assuming cars are still stolen / dented etc, then you'll want insurance the same way you insure your house and other possessions.
However the bigger point is I doubt you'll own a car. More likely there will be lots of driverless taxi companies, and it'll just be very convenient to use your phone to call a taxi to take you where you want. In this case, the insurance cost is folded into the cost of hire.
Maybe. Many people (particularly parents) in suburban areas store a substantial amount of equipment in their cars, and can't effectively use a taxi-service. If I had to pack everything my kids need in a day in and out of shared car at every stop, it would add 10 minutes to each leg of my trip. Plus, do I haul the stuff I bought at the store on my way to work into the office so that my self-driving car can go somewhere else? What about my kid's stroller? That lives in the car.
In urban areas, people travel light, but that's not the case in sub-urban and rural areas.
Taxis are an incredible pain when you have kids, because of the carseat issue. For example, they're required by law in CA for kids under 8 (with a height exception that doesn't apply to most kids).
For bigger kids there are some sorta options like RideSafer vests, but with a baby you're just screwed.
Zipcar has the same issue; our use of it dropped hugely once kids appeared, because it's just too painful.
But regardless, isn't the total liability the same. N number of cars x N drivers paying for N insurance policies vs N number of cars x 20 car companies paying for N insurance policies.
