Research On Criminal Liability Of Autonomous Vehicle Traffic Accidents

In the 21 st century,self-driving cars have emerged at the historic moment,and have gradually entered the public vision.The artificial intelligence revolution on which autonomous driving technology relies is known as the fourth industrial revolution facing humankind.Under the background of the Internet + artificial intelligence technology revolution,traditional cars obviously cannot meet the market’s needs for transportation.The new spark after the collision between traditional cars and modern Internet self-driving cars is self-driving cars.But as a new thing,self-driving cars still derail from the real world.How to integrate self-driving cars into human society? And to achieve the best balance between encouraging the technological development of self-driving cars and preventing technological risks is an issue we have to think about.Criminal law,as the last line of defense for maintaining social order,is modest and complementary.When the use of other social norms is sufficient to solve the problems encountered in the development of autonomous vehicles,the criminal law should give full play to its modesty.However,when a self-driving car has a traffic accident on a public road and brings loss of life and property,it may touch the crime of traffic accident in criminal law.According to the SAE classification standard,in L1-L2,autonomous driving technology is only a driver assistance system and still only plays a tool role.L3-L5’s autonomous driving technology belongs to highly automatic or unmanned driving.At this time,the autonomous driving system drives autonomously during the driving process,with only a few exceptions requiring humans to take over.So how should the liability for the accident be determined when a traffic accident occurs? According to the existing Criminal Law,Article 133,there are obviously many conflicts in the determination of the crime of traffic accidents:including the subject of responsibility provided for in the crime of traffic accidents can only be a natural person or unit,and the subjective requirements of the crime are negligence,causality between behavioral outcomes.However,humans do not play the role of driver in the car.There is no real-time supervision and takeover responsibility for the driving process of the car,and it is obviously not in line with the principle ofcriminal responsibility for human beings to bear criminal responsibility.Therefore,this article will discuss whether the car itself can be the subject of criminal responsibility under the complex situation that the subject of the responsibility of the self-driving car is responsible,and discuss the possibility of being the subject of liability.At the L1-L2 level,assisted driving tools can still be identified in the traditional way,and L3-L5’s autonomous driving should discuss the driver,the autonomous driving system,and the manufacturer.Drivers’ liability can be ruled out through technical characteristics and the criminal liability principle.By analyzing whether the autonomous driving system has the identification and control capabilities required by criminal law,and then negating the status of the subject of criminal liability for autonomous vehicles,it is believed that the ultimate responsibility for accidents is decomposed into manufacturing.Such as vendors,designers and sellers.However,these three persons do not bear the “obligation to pay attention to” specific traffic accidents during the driving process,and therefore cannot constitute a traffic accident crime.Therefore,their liability is not based on conviction and sentencing according to the traffic accident crime,but on the basis of vehicle design and production,whether the sales meet the standards and determine whether it constitutes the crime of producing or selling products that do not meet safety standards as stipulated in Article146 of the Criminal Law.Of course,the development of technology will inevitably bring certain risks,and criminal law should be tolerated within certain limits.The following two cases: First,there is no violation of safety standards in the design,production,and sales of the car,and the driver(passenger)also complies with the corresponding obligation of caution but still causes trouble;In the ethical dilemma of inability to choose,the choices that force the autonomous driving system to make a last resort cause damage to personal property.All should set up the self-driving car safety guarantee fund to deal with the compensation problem,and under this circumstance,the criminal responsibility of the parties should still be severely investigated.