Research On Civil Liability Of Self-driving Cars In Traffic Accidents

The development of self-driving cars will bring subversive changes to human traffic behavior.On the one hand,self-driving cars can liberate human limbs,reduce the incidence of accidents,alleviate traffic congestion,etc.,which has great social value.On the other hand,self-driving cars have also posed safety hazards to human beings and property.At the same time,they have brought huge challenges to the current civil liability rules.Firstly,the humanoid attribute of self-driving cars have caused a dispute over civil legal status.For this dispute,this article categorizes the main points of the subject theory and the object theory,and analyze the limitations of the subject theory,then draw a conclusion that the self-driving cars should be included in the category of ‘thing’ of civil object,that is,the person should bear the civil liability for the damage caused by the traffic accident.Secondly,the intelligence of self-driving cars has led to the lack of matching of the current civil liability models,and the lack of compatibility of various constituent elements when applying the traditional motor vehicle accident liability model and product liability model respectively.For this problem,this article proposes to adopt the common force model of ’motor vehicle accident liability + product liability’,and slightly adjust to individual elements on the basis of existing civil liability rules according to the automated level of self-driving car to solve the problem of the distribution of civil liability after a traffic accident.Finally,the complexity of the technology behind self-driving cars made it difficult to prove the facts of traffic accidents.In this regard,this article proposes to use the ’black box’ to ascertain the facts of a traffic accident,in order to clarify the responsibilities of each party.In addition,for encouraging technological innovation and fully relieving the victims’ losses,this article proposes to build a three-tier insurance structure to diversify the risks of the responsible parties,and establish a social compensation fund for self-driving cars to fill in areas of liability relief not covered.I hope to be able to solve the problem of civil liability regulation for traffic accidents of self-driving cars as comprehensively and reasonably as possible.