자율주행자동차 운전면허제도에 관한 법적연구 - 도로교통법을 중심으로 -

Abstract

Recently, interest is heightening in “responses to changes in future traffic environments such as autonomous vehicles” in the transportations fields of digital artificial intelligence and the Fourth Industrial Revolution and attention is also being given to matters related to the commercialization of autonomous vehicles. Accordingly, attention is also being given to revisions in legislation associated with autonomous vehicles. As it is unsure whether autonomous vehicles can be included in the concept of automobiles with changes in the new paradigm, revisions are needed in legislation around the world. While there are discussions regarding various associated laws in Korea, when the role that autonomous vehicles will play in road traffic is taken into account, representative laws in associated legislation can be considered road traffic laws in themselves, and of those, laws that take a primary role can be considered matters necessary in making such autonomous vehicles move through road traffic so they will become matters associated with driver’s licenses following traffic laws. Therefore, when legal theories associated with driver’s licenses and associated matters are taken into consideration, the basis of legal theories in which driver’s license regulations following traffic laws until now are legal principles of acceptable risk and thus, with regard to the dangerous situations of automobiles and traffic, a driver’s license is a legal principle that allows the acquisitor that risk using the means of a driver’s license. At this, when driver’s licenses for autonomous vehicles are examined based on legal theories associated with existing driver’s licenses, they should be examined with relatively different viewpoints; one based on licenses given to people and one based on autonomous driving, or in other words, based on automobiles with human elements. Consequentially, while it is thought that licenses are generally given to those who can drive, examinations made of legal reasoning and of contents following evaluation methods show that the matter is not so simple. First, various judgments and reactions that can only be made by human drivers and that must be possessed as a driver who can perform the act of driving have taken place as elements necessary in the issuance of a driver’s license and even if the age of autonomous vehicles arrives, basic elements that cannot change surely exist, so a “license” or forms of “qualification” given to people must always be involved. In other words, it should be reviewed that driver’s licenses are called so because driving is the representative matter among the various necessary matters involved in the issuance of driver’s licenses, not because it encases the entire meaning of driving. Even if people do not continue to perform the act of driving, the need for qualifications that can be called “use” or “boarding” licenses will arise. Also, as autonomous vehicles are already performing human acts of driving that can sufficiently substitute human drivers while performing autonomous driving functions, law abiding abilities regarding road traffic within the driver’s license system of road traffic and any other evaluations or procedures must surely be involved to prevent the danger and hazards of road traffic. Apart from defining relations regarding the concept of drivers, driving abilities such as the observance of traffic laws are surely needed while autonomous vehicles are autonomously driving. With autonomous driving functions, in substituting the driving abilities of drivers, the observance of traffic laws that must fundamentally be abided by when drivers are driving can be considered evaluations from aspects of autonomous driving system software rather than from the simple functional aspects of machinery. However in this case, it is slightly irrational to attach the expression of “driver’s license” to autonomous vehicles in themselves within the reality of existing laws. However, evaluations and procedures followed to prevent danger and hazards in association with the autonomous driving system aforementioned can be understood as ‘licenses’ with regard to autonomous vehicles according to the way we commonly express them. Conclusively, even with the commercialization of autonomous vehicles and further, even if completely autonomous vehicles drive in road traffic, licenses need to exist as a basic item that human drivers, users, or boarders must possess. Further, evaluations or procedures within the driver’s license system should exist for the autonomous driving system of autonomous vehicles in order to prevent danger and hazards in road traffic.