How Novel Is Tort Liability for Autonomous Vehicles? – Part 1 of 2
On this episode of Driverless Tod Northman and Emmanuel Sanders interview Professor Mark Geistfeld, the Sheila Lubetsky Birnbaum Professor of Civil Litigation at the NYU School of Law, about his groundbreaking performance-based approach to liability for and regulation of Autonomous Vehicles. Professor Geistfeld discusses the shortcomings of earlier approaches to Autonomous Vehicle liability, and the benefits of adopting a commonsense, performance-based approach. Professor Geistfeld further advocates for adoption of a performance-based regulatory framework, which will provide certainty to manufacturers and users of Autonomous Vehicles without hampering the innovation and improvement of this life-saving technology.
Further Reading
Mark Geistfeld, “A Roadmap for Autonomous Vehicles: State Tort Liability, Automobile Insurance, and Federal Safety Regulation,” 105 Cal. L. Rev. 1611 (2017)
Mark Geistfeld, “The Regulatory Sweet Spot for Autonomous Vehicles,” 53 Wake Forest L. Rev. 101 (2018)
Mark Geistfeld, “How Liable Should Driverless-Car Companies Be for Accidents?,” Time, Apr. 16, 2018, at 13
Mark Geistfeld, Tort Law and Alternatives: Cases and Materials (Foundation Press 10th ed., 2016) (with Marc A. Franklin, Robert L. Rabin and Michael D. Green)
Mark Geistfeld, Products Liability Law (Wolters Kluwer Law & Business, 2012)
Mark Geistfeld, Principles of Products Liability (Foundation Press; Thomson Reuters 2d., 2011; 1st ed., 2006)
Mark Geistfeld, Tort Law: The Essentials (Wolters Kluwer Law & Business; Aspen Publishers, 2008)
Professor Geistfeld’s biography
Show Notes
1:34 Professor Geistfeld’s initial Interest in AV.
3:36 Misguided approach of other scholars – Rebuilding tort from the ground up.
6:23 Misguided approach of other scholars – Analyzing AV from the perspective of traditional motor vehicle accidents (reasonable driver standard).
8:35 Adopting a system-wide performance-based approach to AV liability.
12:06 What standard do we use to compare relative safety of autonomous vehicles?
13:04 Adopting a performance-based approach to regulating AV.
15:4 The benefits of more robust performance-based regulation/The pitfalls of not adopting more robust federal regulation.
19:51 Developing a standard for performance-based liability/regulation – Requiring AV to perform twice as safely as human drivers.