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Driverless Cars – More Risks? Higher Insurance?

By Carly Philp

Apple may be joining the race to look at driverless car technology to challenge the likes of Tesla.

Before we get too excited, there are many legal, technical and practical considerations to be taken into account.

For my purposes, would a driverless car reduce or increase the risk of accidents on the road? As we all know, the high cost of claims has abacklash on drivers in the high cost of insurance cover.

Whilst the element of human error will inevitably be reduced, surely the chances of malfunction are going to increase. Will we find ourselves in a catch 22 situation? It remains to be seen whether the technology is such that accidents on the road become a thing of the past; however, even if this is the case, are we really going to live in a world, in our lifetime, where there are no driver operated vehicles on the road?

Is this yet another phase, like Tomorrow’s World style paper pants or floating bicycles, which will never catch on?

Over the last few years, the Government has made a number of changes to the way personal injury claims are dealt with, to include banning distasteful advertising, setting fixed fees and standardisingthe medical assessment process. They say that they believe that this will reduce the amount of fraudulent and exaggerated claims and ultimately reduce insurance premiums.

As experienced personal injury lawyers, we know that all the evidence shows that the “compensation culture” which the government andinsurers talk about simply doesn’t exist – the indicationsare that the number of claims have in fact fallen over recent years. We are of course concerned about the number of genuine and sincere claimants who are being tarred with the brush of dishonesty by the media. However, it is in the interests of everyone to ensure that all the claims made are by people who have genuinely been injured, and claimant lawyers are working with defendants and insurers to ensure that is the case.

With the advent of driverless cars, are any successful changes going to be undone? Will they in fact lead to more claims caused by malfunctioning technology?

For those who genuinely injure themselves in a road traffic accident, sometimes the effects can be devastating and life-changing. Whether this is caused by another driver’s negligence or a malfunction of the car itself, damages can be sought from the responsible driver’s or manufacturers’ insurance company so that person can be rehabilitated and compensated accordingly.