A road accident may drastically affect someone’s life. Serious injuries may result from a vehicle’s collision with another vehicle, a pedestrian, an animal, road debris, or a stationary object. Broken bones, long-lasting scarring, paralysis, and even death can result from blunt force trauma brought on by an automobile accident.
In America, there were 32,166 fatal collisions in 2015. That number rose to 34,247 in 2017 and was responsible for 37,133 fatalities, not to mention the millions of accidents that did not result in fatalities. These accidents can change a driver’s life or end it, necessitating the services of a personal injury attorney.
Individuals involved in auto accidents may experience psychological trauma even after getting medical care, such as a dread of operating a motor vehicle or riding in one again. This can have a severe impact on their ability to work and resume their lives as they were before the incident.
Who is responsible if no one is driving as dependability and faith in computer technology take the wheel? Legislation governing insurance and personal responsibility is continuously being updated to take into consideration developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning that can be used to evaluate faults in personal injury claims.
Personal injury lawyers who are equipped with the new laws of personal injury cases that happened due to artificial intelligence can be of great assistance to those who face an accident or sustain personal injuries due to the said modern technology.
Modern technology fails to prevent road crashes and accidents
There is a school of thought that contends that current technology not only fails to prevent auto accidents but also impairs the judgment of drivers while they are operating a vehicle. This argument contends that the usage of technology like lane departure warnings and blind spot monitoring makes drivers overly dependent on it, which impairs their driving abilities.
The main support for these allegations comes from anecdotal information and a connection that was taken for cause. This assumption is supported by a single piece of evidence: a rise in fatal crashes in the United States over the past several years has coincided with an increase in safety technologies in automobiles.
The top ten public health accomplishments of the 20th century, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, include the safety of motor vehicles. The U.S. automobile miles traveled grew by more than 8% between 2000 and 2009, while the death rate fell from 14.9 per 100,000 persons to just 11. Regulations governing seat belts and kid safety seats were improved.
It was obvious that newer and better solutions to lower traffic fatalities would emerge as technology advanced. Today, researchers are able to pinpoint the primary causes of car crashes, and distracted driving tops the list. Examples comprise the following:
- leaving the steering wheel
- disregarding the road
- mobile phone use while driving
The usage of cellphones while driving is a serious issue because it slows down reaction time. Research by Beede and Kass, published in Accident Analysis & Prevention in 2006, found that using a smartphone while driving negatively affected performance in every metric that could be tested, including attentional lapses, longer reaction times, and an increase in traffic offenses. Driving performance suffers even when using a hands-free phone.
Studies demonstrating the advantages of contemporary safety technology
New driving technologies unquestionably save lives, according to the International Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). In 2015, more than 5,000 accidents were examined by Jessica Cicchino, vice president of the research division, with a focus on collisions that lane departure and blind spot warning systems are intended to avoid.
Overall, accidents involving sideswipe and head-on collisions were 11% less frequent in vehicles with warning systems than in vehicles without them. Furthermore, injury crashes of the same nature were reduced by almost 20% as a result of collision avoidance technology. Due to the fact that many drivers turn off their warning systems when they become annoyed by the notifications, it is conceivable that even more individuals would prevent collisions if they left their systems on all the time.
Amazingly, according to the IIHS, installing lane departure warning systems in every car would cut the number of car accidents by 85,000 a year and the number of injuries by a mind-boggling 55,000.
The IIHS has undertaken many more studies than just this one. It released study findings in the Status Report in January 2016. On this particular occasion, the effectiveness of front crash prevention systems was highlighted. According to the IIHS, having a forward-collision system alone decreases rear-end crashes by 23%, while having a fully autonomous braking system reduces the likelihood of a rear-end collision by 40%.
Drawbacks in auto technology
Liability is among the major problems with self-driving cars. Selling cars that don’t need to be driven puts the lives of automakers in danger since they could be held liable for selling a defective product if a hardware or software flaw results in an accident. Because of this, it’s likely that automakers won’t take a chance on the assertion that their vehicles can truly drive themselves, even if they are capable of doing so in every other way.
This is the reason why automakers like Tesla require drivers to agree to disclaimers on their vehicles that state things like, “You should not take your hands from the steering wheel while your car is on autopilot,” as a precaution.
Drivers are not flawless, and technology is not perfect either. Although they may not get inebriated or distracted, computers could nevertheless malfunction due to faulty software or contracting a virus. Years of testing will be required for new technologies like self-driving cars in order to iron out any “kinks” that might endanger the lives of drivers.
Therefore, even though the future of vehicle accident cases involving self-driving cars is uncertain, it’s still likely that this field of law will continue to be lucrative for many years to come. After all, traditional cars in traffic and drivers who take over their automated vehicles when they shouldn’t are entirely eliminated by self-driving vehicles.
Consultation on a personal injury claim due to a malfunction in modern technology can be carried out with an expert personal injury lawyer, especially when thinking about filing a wrongful death or accident claim in the US. Consult a lawyer who will offer individualized and thorough service.
Conclusion
The popularity of advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) is rising. According to research by Markets and Markets, the global market for ADAS will grow from $27 billion this year to $83 billion by 2030. A 12% annual growth rate is impressive for semi-autonomous driving systems. The driving experience may change as a result of ADAS features. LexisNexis Risk Solutions found that ADAS vehicles demonstrated a 27% drop in the frequency of bodily injury claims and a 19% reduction in the frequency of property damage claims. But even then if an accident is caused the human would be sued for the injuries because that technology is one way or the other made by a human being.
