Pattinson, J-A, Chen, H and Basu, S orcid.org/0000-0001-5863-854X (2020) Legal issues in automated vehicles: critically considering the potential role of consent and interactive digital interfaces. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 7. 153. ISSN 2662-9992
Abstract
Some of the first ‘automated’ vehicles to be deployed on our roads will require a system of shared driving with a human driver. While this creates technical and operational challenges, the law must also facilitate such a transfer. One method may be to obtain the driver’s consent to share operational responsibility and to delineate legal responsibility between vehicle and driver in the event of an accident. Consent is a voluntary agreement where an individual is aware of the potential consequences of their consent, including the risks. The driver of a partially automated vehicle must be informed of potential risks before giving consent to share operational responsibility. This paper will refer to the inherent dangers associated with shared operational responsibility, in particular where there has been a request for the driver to take back control from the automated vehicle during the journey. Drivers are likely to experience delay in regaining situational awareness, making such operational transfers hazardous. It is argued that where an interactive digital interface is used to convey information, such as driver responsibility, risk and legal terms, drivers may fail to sufficiently process such communications due to fundamental weaknesses in human–machine interaction. The use of an interactive digital interface alone may be inadequate to effectively communicate information to drivers. If the problems identified are not addressed, it is argued that driver consent may be inconsequential, and fail to facilitate a predicable demarcation of legal responsibility between automated vehicles and drivers. Ongoing research into automated vehicle driver training is considered as part of the preparation required to design driver education to a level whereby drivers may be able to sufficiently understand the responsibilities involved in operating a partially automated vehicle, which has implications for future driver training, licensing and certification.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2020. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
Keywords: | Psychology; Science, technology and society |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Education, Social Sciences and Law (Leeds) > School of Law (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number EU - European Union 815098 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 19 Nov 2020 16:29 |
Last Modified: | 19 Nov 2020 16:29 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer Nature |
Identification Number: | 10.1057/s41599-020-00644-2 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:168142 |