Blame of crash causation across varying levels of vehicle automation
Keywords: Driver Psychology, Autonomous Vehicles
ACRS
Submission Date: 2019
Abstract
The question over “who is responsible” for a crash involving automation has been debated however it is important to ascertain public perceptions in order to guide the development of legal frameworks for managing crashes at varying levels of automation. Undergraduate students responded to a series of vignettes with the automation level manipulated, answering questions about blame. Participants assigned blame to six possible stakeholders (driver, pedestrian, car, government, manufacturer, programmer), with 37.4% blaming the driver in the fully automated scenario. Participants called for either an improvement in or avoidance of automation. These findings have implications for the development of legal frameworks and for trust in autonomous vehicles.