Reverse Traceability Framework for Identifying Liability of Crashes for Self-Driving Vehicles Using Blockchains

Abstract

Modern vehicles are increasingly having a higher level of technology and automation. Humans are increasingly becoming dependent on these modern technologies to take decisions related to their lives and safety. Such an increasing dependence on automation raises an important question. If an autonomous vehicle (AV) meets an accident, who will be responsible? It is not the human driver, but technology that makes those crucial decisions on the road. This question is attracting considerable attention in the insurance industry because traditional vehicle insurance is based on the liability of human drivers, but in the future, vehicle technology will replace human drivers. Therefore, the vehicle manufacturer or one of its suppliers may be held responsible for the accident. This paper presents a crash liability identification framework that can identify who is liable if there is a crash or an accident of an autonomous self-driving vehicle. The use cases demonstrate that the proposed framework can be used by regulators to efficiently identify the liable party when an AV crashes.