MD bill allowing driverless cars faces opposition over crash liability

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A bill in the Maryland General Assembly would allow fully autonomous vehicles in the state, but wouldn’t — at least as drafted — give people anyone to sue in the event of an accident.

The bill, sponsored by Del. Natalie Ziegler, D-Howard and Montgomery, creates a regulatory framework for companies such as Waymo to bring driverless vehicles to Maryland. Supporters say autonomous vehicles are safer than human drivers and can help people with disabilities, who are often denied rides by Uber and Lyft drivers, to get around more easily.

“They don’t do the dumb things that people do,” Ziegler said this month at a hearing of the House Environment and Transportation Committee. “They don’t drive drunk, they don’t text while they’re driving, they don’t speed.”

As written, the bill defines the “operator” of a driverless vehicle as the car’s “automated driving system,” meaning the “hardware and software that are collectively capable of performing the entire dynamic driving task.”

According to Will Hubbard, a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law, that leaves no one to hold accountable for accidents or violations of Maryland traffic law.

“This notion of ‘operator’ identifies a part of the car, not a legally responsible actor,” Hubbard told the committee. “A police officer cannot give a part of a car a ticket, nor can a pedestrian hit in a crosswalk sue a part of a car.”

Hubbard asked for an amendment that would require the person providing the “first responder interaction plan” — the communication plan between emergency services and the car manufacturer — to also certify that a vehicle can follow state law. That person should also be subject to citations if the vehicle fails to comply with the law.

Hubbard said that’s how Pennsylvania and Arizona ensure accountability for failures.

Del. Regina Boyce, D-Baltimore City, asked Bruce Plaxen, a Maryland attorney currently serving as president of the American Association for Justice, why the company wouldn’t be assumed to be liable for any injuries or violations.

“Yeah — that would be the system that we would propose, but the bill doesn’t say that,” said Plaxen, co-founder of the personal-injury firm Plaxen Adler Muncy in Columbia. “When there’s no driver to make a claim against, there is no case.”

Plaxen said he doesn’t oppose self-driving cars, and agreed with the supporters’ statements about the potential safety benefits. But he said the bill was flawed because it was shaped in part by Waymo.

Anthony Perez, a Waymo representative, testified at the hearing that riding in a Waymo vehicle is a “totally normal part of life for millions of Americans.”

Other opponents said the vehicles are far from foolproof, noting examples of the vehicles not stopping for school buses and malfunctioning more frequently at certain times of day.

Several union leaders opposed the bill, arguing that the entrance of Waymo and other companies onto Maryland roads would cause people to lose their jobs.

“It threatens economic destruction in our state,” said David Pendleton, of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers, known as SMART.

Brian Wivell, of the Amalgamated Transit Union locals 289 and 1300, said that he wouldn’t necessarily oppose a bill that allowed consumers to purchase self-driving cars, but that the current bill appears designed to put rideshare drivers out of work.

Wivell noted that Washington, D.C., does not yet allow fully autonomous vehicles, and he said Virginia delayed legislation until next year.

He asked, “What’s the rush?”