무인(無人)자동차의 상용화에 따른 보험 법리의 개선

Autonomous vehicles have the potential to revolutionize traveling and highway safety and it is anticipated that they will be widespread within decades. The benefits to the marketplace, safety, productivity and efficiency that autonomous vehicles will bring have a potential to change our lives for the better. While, in Korea, no regulations exist only for autonomous vehicles, there are numerous national and international government and industry efforts to develop principles, guidelines, and standards for related technologies. However, the emergence of autonomous vehicles presents some important legal questions needed to be resolved before commercializing them. Since computers are not perfect, it is practical to assume that self-driving cars will sometimes malfunction. Thus, manufacturers of autonomous vehicles have substantially concerned about tort liability (products liability) for damages that may result from the use of them. That is, the transition from fully human-driven vehicles to fully autonomous vehicles holds the promise of improving safety but is likely to shift the focus of liability of automobile crashes from drivers to the vehicle manufacturers. So, it is important to examine how should liability be assessed and apportioned when an autonomous vehicle, under automatic control, gets into an accident and how should legal framework handle this issue. Moreover, this liability regime would have a great impact on the structure and design of automobile insurance, products liability insurance and etc. because insurance law (esp. liability insurance) and tort law are closely related to each other. Therefore, this article seeks to examine how products liability doctrine in the U.S. applies to accidents involving autonomous vehicles in order to address the above issue and explores ways in which automobile insurance and products liability insurance might change to accommodate the use of them.