Autonomous driving and responsibility in the event of an accident: the somewhat strange promise of Mercedes

The Mercedes manufacturer has started to deploy on the S-Class
in Germany its Drive Pilot autonomous driving system and strongly wants to export it to the United States by making a somewhat strange promise: if the system is activated, you are no longer responsible in the event of an accident or violation. A statement that raises many questions both about the individual liability of the driver and its feasibility in the very different legal frameworks of the countries.

Mercedes’ Drive Pilot can be activated if the vehicle meets a number of very specific conditions and will take control of its movements until it returns control to the driver.

The first Level 3 certified system

Mercedes has received authorization to deploy its driving assistant in traffic jams, the Drive Pilot, on German motorways. When very specific conditions are met, the system takes control of the vehicle’s steering wheel, speed and brakes to navigate between the different lanes of a highway. Mercedes is the very first manufacturer to have obtained Level 3 autonomous driving certification at the end of last year, which authorizes it to market so-called “highly autonomous” vehicles.

To obtain this approval, the brand with the star has gone all out and offers a very advanced system, capable of managing trajectories and anticipating possible obstacles (emergency vehicles, debris) during its use. To show that its Drive Pilot is reliable, Mercedes claims that if it is activated, the driver is then no longer legally responsible for the operations of the vehicle until he regains control of the driving. If there’s an accident, it’s Mercedes’ fault, not the driver’s.

How does the Drive Pilot work?

Mercedes’ Drive Pilot allows the system to take control of the car on a busy or congested highway. To do this, you still have to meet a number of very specific conditions detailed by the German manufacturer. The vehicle must be traveling at less than 60 km/h, on a limited-access highway whose route has been previously recorded by Mercedes, as well as a total absence of traffic lights, roundabouts or work zones . The system can only be operated during the day and in relatively clear weather, and is not permitted in the tunnels.

Once these conditions have been met, an indicator light on the steering wheel indicates to the driver that he can activate the Drive Pilot. Using a battery of LiDAR scanners, high-quality image sensors, microphones, cameras and lots of GPS data, the car will then be able to travel autonomously on the different lanes. It can even detect, early enough to warn the driver, the arrival of emergency vehicles by analyzing the sounds of the flashing lights or the light emitted by them.

When the system can no longer provide autonomous driving, it warns the driver ten seconds in advance that he must regain control, which makes a huge difference with Tesla’s systems, for example, which do not have such an alert. If the person driving does not comply, the car will automatically drive to safety and stop by itself.

Lots of questions about liability

With all this technology, Mercedes ensures that a driver will not be considered at fault if an offense or an accident has been committed when the Drive Pilot is activated. As we’ve seen in the past, uninformed drivers have often placed too much faith in their vehicle’s self-driving system and taken the opportunity to do something else instead of keeping an eye on the road: playing video games, telephoning, chatting with passengers…

First of all, then, is the question of individual responsibility in such cases. If a person is not responsible for the actions of his vehicle, why would he care what happens on the road? What to do when there is an accident? Even more serious, if there are injuries or deaths, what is the real responsibility of the driver who was not paying attention to the road? Is this system reliable enough to enter the legislations of different countries?

If the manufacturer wants to deploy its system at the end of the year in California and Nevada, it may encounter more resistance in other US states, which each have their own road safety laws. Similarly, if Mercedes wants to export its Drive Pilot to France one day, it will have to deal with the Civil Code and in particular its articles L121-1 to L123-4 which establish the criminal liability of owners of registered vehicles.

Autonomous car driving is still a young technology, in full development and still not widely distributed on a global level. The laws of the countries are therefore not yet adapted (even if autonomous driving entered the French Highway Code in July 2021 via a decree recognizing autonomous systems for maintaining the vehicle on a single lane), which is normal for many so small niches. It will be interesting to see Mercedes’ strategy for rolling out its first Level 3 homologated system globally.

Source: Road and Track