Photo: Laguna Beach Police Department
On January 19, we told our readers about a fatal crash involving Autopilot. On December 19, 2019, Kevin George Aziz Riad activated Autopilot in his Tesla Model S. When the car left a freeway at high speed in Gardena, Los Angeles, it ran a red light and killed Gilberto Alcazar Lopez and Maria Guadalupe Nieves-Lopez by hitting their Honda Civic. The trial about this crash will happen on November 15 and promises to be water-shedding.
It will be the first time a jury will decide if someone using an advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) is entirely responsible for the crash or if the automaker offering the software can also be blamed for it. Reuters interviewed several law specialists and collected interesting opinions about what could happen.
According to adjunct law professor Edward Walters, prosecutors will have a hard time proving Riad is the only one responsible for the crash. The autonomous car regulation specialist from Georgetown University said this is the case “because some parts of the task are being handled by Tesla.”
The criminal law professor Robert Blecker even has a hunch on what Riad’s defense will be. The New York Law School specialist thinks the Tesla driver will say he relied on Tesla’s advertisement about how autonomous his car really was. The EV maker is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for false advertising of what Autopilot and Full Self-Driving can do. The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) recently accused Tesla of the same thing. For Blecker, it will be harder for California prosecutors to prove Riad was the sole agent of the crash.
Tesla is being sued by the family of Gilberto Alcazar Lopez in a civil lawsuit that will go on trial in July 2023. Donald Slavik, one of the attorneys representing the victim’s family, told Reuters that Tesla might not be entirely at fault. However, he said the company knows Autopilot makes people less attentive and that they will use it in dangerous situations.
Summing up, two concepts in which Tesla frequently fits will be on trial. Tesla is in trouble for autonowashing (promising that something is more autonomous than it really is). Blaming its customers for misusing insufficiently tested software is a good example of moral crumple zones (using clients to protect its own reputation). Riad’s trial will show how American justice deals with both.
According to adjunct law professor Edward Walters, prosecutors will have a hard time proving Riad is the only one responsible for the crash. The autonomous car regulation specialist from Georgetown University said this is the case “because some parts of the task are being handled by Tesla.”
The criminal law professor Robert Blecker even has a hunch on what Riad’s defense will be. The New York Law School specialist thinks the Tesla driver will say he relied on Tesla’s advertisement about how autonomous his car really was. The EV maker is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for false advertising of what Autopilot and Full Self-Driving can do. The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) recently accused Tesla of the same thing. For Blecker, it will be harder for California prosecutors to prove Riad was the sole agent of the crash.
Tesla is being sued by the family of Gilberto Alcazar Lopez in a civil lawsuit that will go on trial in July 2023. Donald Slavik, one of the attorneys representing the victim’s family, told Reuters that Tesla might not be entirely at fault. However, he said the company knows Autopilot makes people less attentive and that they will use it in dangerous situations.
Summing up, two concepts in which Tesla frequently fits will be on trial. Tesla is in trouble for autonowashing (promising that something is more autonomous than it really is). Blaming its customers for misusing insufficiently tested software is a good example of moral crumple zones (using clients to protect its own reputation). Riad’s trial will show how American justice deals with both.
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