Motorcyclist Oscar Nilsson might not have been going fast when he and an autonomous Chevrolet Bolt EV collided, but he was quick to point the finger and assign fault to the prototype vehicle. Reports via the San Jose, California, Mercury News with subsequent reporting by CNET’s Roadshow, however, indicate that General Motors does not believe the vehicle was to blame. Now Nilsson is suing GM.
The accident happened in San Francisco, where GM has been testing vehicles equipped with self-driving technology developed by its Cruise Automation division. Unlike the Las Vegas autonomous-shuttle crash in November, during which a truck backed into a stationary self-driving bus, both Nilsson and the Bolt EV were in motion when this accident occurred.
The accounts of the event, which occurred on December 7, are a point of contention in the lawsuit. According to the accident report filed by GM, the Bolt EV was driving in the center of a three-lane street in front of Nilsson on his 1996 Honda S90 motorcycle. The car attempted to change into the left lane, but when it sensed the gap was too small, it corrected back into the center lane. There is no indication of how turn signals were or weren’t used. At the same time, Nilsson, who had been lane-splitting the center and right lanes, accelerated into the center lane. The Bolt, at 12 mph, bumped Nilsson, going 17 mph, and Nilsson fell off his motorcycle. One of Cruise Automation’s human Autonomous Vehicle Trainers was in the front seat when the events unfolded, but the report deemed Nilsson to have been at fault.
The lawsuit alleges, however, that “The self-driving vehicle suddenly veered back into Mr. Nilsson’s lane, striking Mr. Nilsson and knocking him to the ground.” Nilsson is claiming his neck and shoulder were injured during the accident and will need “lengthy treatment” that have “forced” him to take a leave of absence from work. The lawsuit is seeking more than $75,000.
The autonomous Bolt EVs that GM has been deploying for testing are reliant on cameras, sensors, radar, and computing power that could lend information to the incident, but it is unclear if or how that information could be used in such a lawsuit. With more and more companies launching testing for self-driving vehicles, this type of accident and determining who is at fault will be a hot topic—one that will rely on both humans and computers to sort out.
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