Oscar Willhelm Nilsson claims he was traveling down a San Francisco street last month when a Cruise\u00a0AV aborted a lane change and swerved into his lane. The car struck him, \u201cknocking him to the ground,\u201d in a crash\u00a0that left him injured and unable to work,\u00a0according to the suit filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco this week<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n The Cruise AV involved in the\u00a0crash with Nilsson was operating in self-driving mode at the time of the crash, the suit alleges, but a backup driver was sitting in the front seat of the vehicle with his hands off the wheel.<\/span><\/p>\n A San Francisco Police Department report, however, puts the blame on Nilsson. According to the report, Nilsson tried to pass a vehicle before it was safe.<\/span><\/p>\n Nilsson\u2019s suit \u2014 seeking damages exceeding $75,000 \u2014 is one of the first involving an autonomous vehicle. Though manufacturers say self-driving vehicles will dramatically reduce traffic accidents and motor vehicle fatalities, experts are already warning that there will probably be many more accidents involving robot-operated cars, a type of accident that raises unresolved questions about responsibility and restitution.<\/span><\/p>\n As of last week, the California Department of Motor Vehicles\u00a0lists 54 autonomous\u00a0vehicle accident reports dating to 2014<\/a>, most of them minor accidents in which other drivers were at fault. Two\u00a0Teslas were involved in separate crashes in California last week. Both drivers claimed that the vehicles were on autopilot,\u00a0a feature that gives the vehicles semi-autonomy<\/a>\u00a0but still requires the driver to be responsible for the car.<\/span><\/p>\n A Model S driver who ignored numerous warnings inside his Tesla was killed in an accident in 2016. A National Transportation Safety Board report said the driver was overly reliant on the vehicle\u2019s autopilot before his fatal crash.<\/span><\/p>\n But in future wrecks, experts say, manufacturers could see their liability increase.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIn comparison to the automotive industry today, the automated driving industry will likely bear a bigger slice of a smaller pie of total crash costs,\u201d Bryant Walker Smith,\u00a0a law professor at the University of Southern California and an expert on the law of self-driving cars,\u00a0wrote in the Michigan State Law Review last year<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In a report filed with the California DMV, GM disputed Nilsson\u2019s account of the crash.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAs the Cruise AV was re-centering itself in the lane, a motorcycle that had just lane-split between two vehicles in the center and right lanes moved into the center lane, glanced the side of the Cruise AV, wobbled and fell over,\u201d\u00a0the report claims<\/a>, noting that\u00a0the Cruise AV was traveling with the flow of traffic at 12 mph and the motorcycle was traveling at approximately 17 mph.<\/span><\/p>\n The report states that\u00a0crash resulted in a \u201clong scuff on passenger side of the vehicle.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe motorcyclist was determined to be at fault for attempting to overtake and pass another vehicle on the right under conditions that did not permit that movement in safety,\u201d the report\u00a0says, adding that Nilsson claimed he had shoulder pain.<\/span><\/p>\n Reached by email, a GM spokesperson said safety is the company\u2019s \u201cprimary focus\u201d during the development and testing of self-driving technology.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIn this matter,\u201d the spokesperson added, \u201cthe SFPD collision report stated that the motorcyclist merged into our lane before it was safe to do so.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The suit arrives on the heels of GM\u2019s announcement that the company has submitted a petition to the Department of Transportation this month asking for permission to deploy self-driving Cruise AV\u2019s. A fourth-generation autonomous vehicle based on the Chevy Bolt EV, the vehicles lack a steering wheel, pedals and human backup drivers.<\/span><\/p>\n The manufacturer is touting<\/a>\u00a0the vehicle as the world\u2019s \u201cfirst production-ready vehicle\u201d built with the sole purpose of operating \u201csafely on its own with no driver.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n GM \u2014 already testing driverless vehicles in San Francisco and Phoenix \u2014 is one of several companies testing level 4 vehicles \u2014 those that are autonomous to a degree.\u00a0A California-based autonomous vehicle start-up called Zoox and Alphabet\u2019s Waymo have also tested level 4 cars.<\/span><\/p>\n Nilsson\u2019s suit seeks unspecified damages, as well as the cost of attorney\u2019s fees and punitive damages. Reached by email, Nilsson\u2019s lawyer, Sergei Lemberg, claims that the police report actually supports his client\u2019s claim, not GM\u2019s.<\/span><\/p>\n For more Logistics News,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Follow us on TWITTER <\/strong><\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Follow us on FACEBOOK<\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n He said the police report states that the AV driver saw Nilsson before the crash but didn\u2019t have enough time to grab the wheel and swerve.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAbsolutely we dispute it,\u201d he said, referring to GM\u2019s side of the story. \u201c A California motorcyclist has filed a lawsuit against General Motors, accusing one of the manufacturer\u2019s robot-operated vehicles of \u201cnegligent driving.\u201d Oscar Willhelm Nilsson claims he was traveling down a San Francisco street last month when a Cruise\u00a0AV aborted a lane change and swerved into his lane. The car struck him, \u201cknocking him to the ground,\u201d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":9484,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,47],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9483"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9483"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9486,"href":"https:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9483\/revisions\/9486"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Cargo-Ad-1.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/del>As far as the technology is concerned, I\u2019m troubled that GM shifted the blame to my client.\u00a0The maneuver by the autonomous car was unpredictable and dangerous.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"