Who is to blame for crashes involving autonomous vehicles? Exploring blame attribution across the road transport system

The Blame Game: Double Standards Apply to Autonomous Vehicle Accidents

“…The study was successful in showing systematic effects of the type of vehicle and outcome severity on blame attribution and trust after an accident. Consistent with previous research (e.g., [9]), the level of blame attributed to the operator was positively related to accident severity, with near misses eliciting the lowest level of blame while major accidents received the highest level. These results are perhaps not surprising due to the fact that negative emotions have been found to be a major contributing factor in the attribution of blame (see [4] for a review) and severe outcomes, especially those involving personal injuries, are more readily to provoke emotional reactions than less severe outcomes.…”

Drivers of partially automated vehicles are blamed for crashes that they cannot reasonably avoid

“…In addition, we acknowledge that describing underlying driver behavior (distraction) without explicitly stating its likely behavioral outcome (reduced ability to intervene) leaves room for interpretation. Similar studies described more explicit actions (e.g., “[the driver] decided to not intervene” 6 ) or outcomes (e.g., “the semi-autonomous car hits the pedestrian” 8 ), not the underlying behavior leading up to them (i.e., distraction in our case). We argue that providing information on the underlying behavior, which we based on human factors literature (e.g., 24 , 26 , 28 , 29 ), is essential and provides a more thorough account of the situation.…”

“…The fact that drivers are mostly blamed could be due to the ‘foreseeability’ involved in partially automated vehicles—the driver should anticipate that the automation could fail 8 , 36 . Most of our participants’ arguments reflect this notion: among others, participants expected the driver to supervise and not get distracted, as well as that the driver made a voluntary choice and commitment when buying or driving a partially automated vehicle.…”

“…Self-driving vehicles are improving rapidly, yet they occasionally fail with potential severe consequences: from near-misses, to crashes resulting in damage, injury, or even loss of life [1][2][3] . While studies investigated the public's opinion on the ethical principles that should guide the behavior of self-driving vehicles in critical situations such as accidents 4 , more recent efforts investigated the public's opinion on how responsibility should be attributed when accidents with self-driving vehicles occur [5][6][7][8][9] . Because many stakeholders are involved, e.g.…”

“…Manufacturers of partially automated vehicles currently assign liability—i.e., legal responsibility—to the human driver by requiring them to remain vigilant and ready to take over control when requested at any time through their terms of use 21 . The general public shares this view that a driver of a partially automated vehicle is required to always be ready to take over: people blame the driver more than the automation when a crash occurs 8 , 9 . Similarly, Awad et al 6 found that humans are blamed more than the automation when both fail to avoid a crash.…”