Legal aspects of autonomous vehicles — An overview

Abstract

The main goal of this article is to provide up-to-date information about legal regulation of autonomous vehicles (AVs) in Europe and the United States of America (U.S.). The legal overview is primarily intended for technical professionals for the purpose of giving them a holistic approach to AVs. The authors believe that technical professionals have to be aware of legal regulation of AVs as well in order to get the opportunity to discuss the feasibility of different legal statements. Besides the definition of AVs based on levels of automation, the article also contains answers to following questions: What are the greatest benefits of AVs? How does the general road traffic law need to be changed to allow the use of AVs on public roads? What are the differences between the current state of AV regulations in the U.S. and Europe? Finally, the paper draws attention to the most significant legal challenges that AVs address to lawmakers, insurance companies, consumers, and last but not least, car manufacturers.