자율주행차 사고와 운행자책임 : 보유자와 ADS Entity의 책임

Abstract

A victim in a car acident is protected under a special regime designed under theProtection of Vehicle Acident Compensation Act, that is “operator liabilty regime”. Under this regime, since an operator of a vehicle is placed under strict liabilty, thevictim is practicaly exempt from the burden of proving the operator’s negligence etc. This special regime for protecting the victim of a car acident wil continue to aply toautomated vehicle (AV) acidents, and in particular a new type of an operator in an AV,an ADS Entiy who shal be liable for an ADS driving. It is argued here that since the concept of “an operator” is quite flexible and the courtsfind an operator or otherwise quite flexibly on the basis of whether an entiy holds (i)control over and (i) benefit from the operation of a vehicle, an ADS Entiy may metthe two criteria of being an operator, and thus the Entiy wil be likely to be two typicalexample of an operator in an AV together with the owner. In this article, I examined the concept of “an operator” and the role of its two elementsof (i) operation control and (i) operation benefit in finding whether a candidate entiymay be liable as an operator or not. In particular, this article aplied the two tests toan ADS Entiy to draw the status of an operator. It is argued that an ADS Entiy can be qualifed as an operator since the Entiy mets the two requirements by (i) controlingthe operation through the ADS and (i) colecting valuable mobilty data from itsoperation. It is also argued that an owner and an ADSE are jointly and severaly liableto the victim as co-operators. Finaly, the article dealt with statutory grounds for exempting operator liabilty andtheir requirements. It is argued that since the policy of operator liabilty is to prioritzethe protection of a car acident victim, it is desirable for an operator or its insurancecompany to pay the victim first under the operator liabilty regime, and then, if the caracident is caused by defects in a car or ADS, claim right of indemnity against themanufacturer of the AV or ADS.