Auto Defect Attorney

Autonomous Vehicle Accidents

A motorcyclist in California sued GM stating that a self-driving Chevrolet Bolt, operating in autonomous mode with a backup driver behind the wheel, veered into his lane, striking him and knocking him to the ground in heavy traffic.

Of about 40 crashes involving self-driving vehicles reported to California regulators since January 2017, 33 allegedly involved GM-operated vehicles. After the motorcyclist filed one of several pending autonomous car lawsuits, a GM spokesperson released the following statement: “Safety is our primary focus when it comes to developing and testing our self-driving technology.”

General Motors has been testing autonomous vehicles in San Francisco since August 2017, allowing employees to employ the cars with a backup driver behind the wheel. The vehicles were allegedly involved in six collisions in September 2017. Testing vehicles are operated by GM and liable for any accidents and injuries.

As more self-driving cars take to the streets, lawsuits are inevitable. Law experts expect self-driving tech companies to settle autonomous car lawsuits quickly if they believe their technology is at fault to keep public images clean for a profitable future.

Self-driving cars are outfitted with a system of cameras, radar and sensors that allow them to detect their surroundings: traffic, pedestrians, bicyclists and other obstacles. Testing of autonomous technology has shown driverless cars to be operating safely, though it’s still a work in progress.

The trend in self driving car accident incidents is very concerning for safety agencies. With autonomous systems like driverless cars, pilotless airplanes, and driverless trucks and trains on the horizon, accidents will continue to occur and lawsuits are likely.

Along with GM, Alphabet’s Waymo and Uber have been targeted in personal injury cases, and lawyers are reviewing a case involving car defects from Ford’s autonomous vehicle firm, Argo, which recently injured two people.

Joe Lyon is a highly-rated and experienced product liability lawyer and self driving car accident attorney, well-versed in the economic impact of road injuries and deaths have on a victim’s life and family. 

Self-Driving Car Accident Lawsuits

Autonomous car accidents differ from traditional crashes due to the involvement of advanced software and artificial intelligence. This will require a specialized investigation. A malfunctioning system—like failure to detect obstacles or sudden disengagement—can shift liability from the driver to the manufacturer, such as Tesla, Waymo, or GM. Recent lawsuits, including a $243 million verdict against Tesla in Florida, highlight courts’ growing willingness to hold companies accountable for design flaws or misleading marketing about the extent of their vehicles’ self-driving capabilities.

Our lawyers can provide knowledge and experience in the practice areas of product liability, technology law, and personal injury, ensuring they can challenge corporate defenses that often blame drivers. We can gather critical evidence—crash data, software logs, and NHTSA reports—to build a strong case.

Uber and other transport-based companies like Waymo and Lyft started testing driverless cars a few years ago. Some state agencies promised to limit oversight as much as possible and companies began testing robotic vehicles on live roads.

To some lawyers and safety agencies following the development, it came as no surprise when an autonomous car operated by Uber, which included an emergency backup driver behind the wheel, hit and killed a woman on an Arizona street.

Arizona police are working with Uber, the National Transportation Safety Board and the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in the investigation.

It was perhaps the first pedestrian death associated with a self driving car accident, though experts have voiced their concerns with more accidents that may follow. The accident was a brutal reminder that self-driving auto technology is still experimental and must be regulated.

Despite the death, and other reported accidents, Uber, Lyft and other companies say autonomous cars will be safer than regular cars as they take distracted human driving out of the road safety equation.

Meanwhile, there is a strong pushback from concerned regulators, including Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, who said, “This tragic incident makes clear that autonomous vehicle technology has a long way to go before it is truly safe for the passengers, pedestrians, and drivers who share America’s roads.”

Waymo, the self-driving car unit of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has been testing cars without a human in the driver’s seat. Researchers working with autonomous car technology have struggled with how to program the systems to adjust for erratic human driving behavior.

The National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending investigators to examine “the vehicle’s interaction with the environment, other vehicles and vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and bicyclists.” In 2016, over 37,000 people died in traffic-related accidents in the United States, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

In 2016, a man driving his Tesla on Autopilot, a self-driving feature, died on a state highway in Florida when his car crashed into a semi truck. In another Tesla Autopilot accident lawsuit, a 2025 jury hit the company with a $230 million verdict.