Ar neblaivus asmuo turi teisę valdyti autonominį automobilį?

Abstract

Author analyzes whether an intoxicated person has the right to use an autonomous vehicle in the context of current laws and the duty of care. In the first part of the article, the author discusses the commonalities and unique features of an autonomous vehicle. Firstly, the article compares different types of autonomous vehicles, in order to determine the concept of this type of vehicle. It is established, that henceforth the author will only focus on a fully autonomous vehicle. Secondly, once it is established which autonomous vehicle level is going to be the main focus of this article, the article distinguishes the unique features of fully autonomous vehicle and its management features. The results showed that fully autonomous vehicles can be used in any kind of environment without any interaction of a person and is expected to provide extra movement of freedom for disabled people. Furthermore, it is not enough for an autonomous vehicle to simply work as intended. The autonomous system has to be the safety net and provide the redundancy. After identifying autonomous vehicle‘s unique features, the author analyses the development progress and forecast of laws in United States of America (hereinafter – USA) and European Union. The results show, that USA is one of the leading countries in autonomous vehicle development. The ability to enact separate laws from the federal government, allows states to try out different kind of laws in order to regulate autonomous vehicle use. Meanwhile, the European Union takes a more conservative approach, by undergoing various experiments and researches in order to ascertain the safety of autonomous vehicles. It is also established that in USA, the laws do not prohibit an intoxicated person from using an autonomous vehicles, meanwhile in European Union, due to the lack of laws, it is prohibited [...].