News

AdaptIVe held a project workshop on legal aspects of automated driving on 17 September 2015 at Federation of French Car Manufacturers in Paris, France. The presentations of well-known speakers – being legal or industry experts and representatives from authorities – outlined challenges and solutions for legal questions related to automated driving.

The comprehensive agenda can be found here.
Presentations are available here.

Wolfgang Höfs, Head of Sector Strategic Planning and Communication, European Commission, emphasised the high expectations of the European Commission towards the project to advance in the field of legal aspects of automated driving. A technical state of the art and a look at the solutions coming out of the project was then provided by AdaptIVe Coordinator Aria Etemad, Volkswagen AG and Eric Hilgendorf, Professor of Law, University of Würzburg. Afterwards, the status of the legal aspects in the European Union and in the United States was presented by Maxime Flament, ERTICO – ITS Europe as representative of Vehicle and Road Automation (VRA) and Bryant Walker Smith, Assistant Professor of Law, University of South Carolina.

Further topics related to regulatory, technical approval and liability law were addressed by Joel Valmain, WP 1 Vice Chair, Yves van der Straaten, Secretary General and Technical Director at International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers (OICA) and Cornelius Renken, Senior Counsel, Volkswagen AG.

The second half of the day focused on data privacy questions as well as reflections towards new insurance models. These themes were introduced by Sophie Nerbonne, Director of Compliance, Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) and Stéphane Pénet, Director of Insurance of property and liability at the French Federation of the French Insurers.

A panel discussion and an outlook to 2040 by Alain Bensoussan introducing the idea of robot law completed the programme. All agreed, that discussions about automated driving function should by now give priority to functions on level three of the SAE scheme.

Andreas Knapp, leader of sub-project Response 4, Daimler AG, led through the event. Yves Page, Expert in 'Road Safety and Accident Research' at Renault, opened the event and also provided a holistic overview of all contents discussed during the day in the end of the workshop.

Altogether, nearly 80 experts took advantage of the workshop. Discussions and networking offered the opportunity to exchange the experiences made so far with legal aspects on automated driving.