Self-driving trucks are now operating on California highways, and a personal injury law firm is advising drivers on how fault may be determined when an autonomous big rig causes a crash. Under regulations the California DMV adopted on April 28, companies can test autonomous trucks over 10,001 pounds, but each must start with a safety driver behind the wheel and log 500,000 miles per phase before moving to driverless operations. Kodiak AI and Aurora have received testing permits, and on September 22, Kodiak began hauling freight between Fresno and Los Angeles. The Teamsters are challenging the rules in Alameda County Superior Court.
According to Barry P. Goldberg, A Professional Law Corporation, a firm that represents people injured by commercial vehicles along Interstate 8 and State Routes 67 and 125, the arrival of autonomous trucks complicates but does not erase traditional fault analysis. “A self-driving truck doesn’t change the basic question of who caused the crash. It changes how many companies may share the answer,” said Barry P. Goldberg, founder of the firm. “The key evidence lives in the truck’s software and sensor logs, and the companies on the other side control those records.”
In conventional truck crashes, fault can rest with the driver, the trucking company, the business that loaded the cargo, or the shop that maintained the vehicle. Self-driving trucks add two new layers. First, the safety driver: during testing, a human operator must sit behind the wheel, and an operator who fails to take control can share fault with the carrier that employs them. Second, the technology company: when an automated driving system malfunctions, injured people may pursue a product liability claim against the company that designed it.
The implications extend beyond the testing phase. As autonomous trucks accumulate miles and eventually operate without a safety driver, the pool of potentially responsible parties may include manufacturers, software developers, and fleet operators. That means crash victims and their lawyers must identify and preserve evidence from multiple sources quickly, before records are overwritten or lost.
Goldberg advises injured people to note the company names on the truck and to contact a lawyer early, so every company involved receives a letter requiring it to keep its records, including software and sensor logs. Whatever happens with the Teamsters’ lawsuit, California law still lets injured parties pursue every party that contributed to the crash.
The firm’s truck accident lawyer in El Cajon, CA represents clients across California from offices in El Cajon, Woodland Hills, Valencia, and Simi Valley. As self-driving trucks become more common, the cases that follow may set important precedents for how liability is apportioned among humans and machines.
