asking for a friend: if i run over a biker in my autonomous car, who gets charged with manslaughter?

 

Your friend, presupposing that the circumstances justify a charge of manslaughter (eg: a death occurred, and the circumstances surrounding the incident would justify a charge of manslaughter in the event that the vehicle was non-autonomous.)

Given the present structure of the law, the "operator" of a vehicle is generally considered to be ultimately liable for its safe performance, even if they are not directly in control of it. This has always been the case in the maritime and aviation fields, where autopilot has been in common use for decades.

The mitigating factor would be whether a defect in the vehicle, unknown to the operator, directly and materially contributed to the incident. For instance, if a tie rod end were to fall off of your car and lead to a fatal crash, you would not be criminally liable presupposing that you were not at fault for the tie-rod failure.

While the manufacturer of the car will undoubtedly be named as a defendant in the civil suit filed by the family of the biker (I assume you meant cyclist), it's unlikely that criminal charges would be filed unless a pattern of grossly negligent behavior on their part was apparent. And even in this case, it would likely result in an agreement of deferred prosecution contingent upon paying a large monetary penalty, as was the case with Toyota during the unintended acceleration thing in 2014.

And, in any case, the charge would not likely be manslaughter. Charging a corporation with a capital crime (or similar) is exceedingly uncommon. There's a very well-written paper entitled Corporate Criminal Liability for Homicide: A Statutory Framework which I'd encourage you to read if you are interested in the topic.



I am aware of at least two cases in which this has been peripherally tested in an automotive context. The first was in Morgan Hill, CA in January, when Colin Flynn's Tesla crashed into a creek, and the second was in Culver City, when a Tesla crashed into the back of a stopped fire truck. Both drivers were arrested for DUI and prosecuted, even though their cars were operating in auto-pilot mode at the time. Granted, the law being broken here was the one against operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating substances, but these cases will no doubt be cited in future prosecutions.


This is going to be a very interesting arena of the law to watch in the coming years.


TL;DR: if you're planning to kill a cyclist with your autonomous car, make sure you're sober when it happens.

 

In a perfect world, the biker gets charged for damaging the car.

 

 

https://www.facebook.com/Blackmarketmemez/videos/416803952111703/

 

 

for joe:

 

 

 

https://www.facebook.com/turningpointusa/videos/1615999721782071/
we ban things we dont know.

 

for joep:

youtube is blocking gun videos because not gov't. gun video authors have moved to a new host:

 

Old news, mate.

 

THE UNBELIEVABLE LIST OF THINGS THAT ARE BANNED BY SAN FRANCISCO
by Kevin Ryan

San Francisco this week banned the sale of products containing animal fur, becoming the biggest city to do so. But that’s not the only thing prohibited in the city. San Francisco has a long history of using ordinances as virtue signaling, or to push progressive agendas, or to punish private businesses that don’t conform to the city’s politics. In the process, the list of banned items and activities in San Francisco has grown to comical proportions:

• Happy Meal toys
• Sitting or lying on the sidewalk
• Phone books
• Segways
• Soda, bottled water from vending machine
• City employees are not allowed to use tax money to travel to Arizona, Kansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky, South Dakota, and Texas
• Advertisements with guns or violence
• Plastic bags
• Styrofoam food packaging
• Packing peanuts
• Clove cigarettes
• Fur products
• Chocolate milk in schools
• Cats being declawed
• Jr. ROTC
• Contracts with anyone that utilizes tropical hardwood or redwood
• Airplanes with advertisements
• Tobacco in drug stores and supermarkets
• Plastic bags
• City purchases of any items from Apple Computer
• Street chess
• Stickball
• Menthol cigarettes
• Flavored tobacco
• Flavored vaping products
• Goldfish
• Pet stores (other than rescue dogs & cats)
• Stink bombs
• Walking more than 8 dogs at a time
• Cemeteries
• Cremating corpses
• Hosting a masked ball without a permit
• Letting your dog stick its head out of the car window
• Sharing a cigar cutter
• Washing your car with non-recycled water
• Slingshots
• Riding a bike on the sidewalk over the age of 13
• Going into a public toilet with another adult
• Carrying bread, cakes, or pastry in an open basket
• Owning beef cattle
• Mule meat
• Being boisterous on a city bus
• Letting a dog ride in your car unless it’s belted, tethered, or in a carrier

SOURCES:
http://wwd.com/…/san-francisco-becomes-largest-u-s-city-to…/
http://www.thewire.com/…/banned-san-fran-guide-what-…/39375/
http://www.buzzfeed.com/…/10-things-that-are-banned-in-san-…
http://www.myfoxny.com/…/san-francisco-considers-banning-bu…
http://www.frugal-cafe.com/…/ban-crazy-san-francisco-does-…/
http://www.upi.com/…/San-Francisco-bans-stre…/2811379538561/
http://www.thenewamerican.com/…/12043-city-of-san-francisco…
https://www.sfgate.com/…/25-things-that-are-illegal-in-San-…
http://www.onlyinyourstate.com/…/…/crazy-laws-san-francisco/
http://sftodo.com/…/09/02/strangest-laws-in-san-francisco.h…

 

Aside from street chess and sharing a cigar cutter, most of those seem like net positives for society to me.

Not sure what the deal is with bread and pastry in open baskets, gonna look into that one.

 

youre such a totalitarian. the only one i agree with on that list is declawing cats. animal cruelty should be illegal.


they forgot playing Frisbee on the beach too.

 

yet again, the left shows their blatant racist behavior.

 

TIL: It's legal to hunt humans.

 

liberals:
2016: trump will never win
2017: trump is a ****
2018: trump take our guns like the ***** did.

 

best sign from the "protest":

 

dat logic: