James R. Balmforth: West Jordan Lawyer

Driverless cars, the pinnacle of automotive innovation and the potential future of safe driving, have recently proven to be anything but: according to a study from the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute in Ann Arbor, auto accident rates are twice as high for driverless cars as they are for your average error-prone human driver.

With rates like that, any self-driving car owner can expect to pay a number of visits to her lawyer, if the car doesn’t crash itself along the way.

SHOULD DRIVERLESS CARS OBEY ALL TRAFFIC LAWS WITHOUT EXCEPTION?

What’s causing this auto accident discrepancy? After all, anyone would think human drivers in the kind of rush-hour traffic that backs up miles outside West Jordan, Utah would have a harder time navigating the highway than a cool, calculating robot.

The catch? Self-driving cars are programmed to obey all traffic laws, regardless of the situation. So whether it’s merging onto high-speed traffic on the highway or rolling into a four-way intersection in Farmington, a self-driving car makes no concessions.

Human drivers, meanwhile, bend the rules of traffic law with abandon. Most drivers are guilty of rolling through the occasional stop sign, speeding through that yellow light or driving “with the flow of traffic” on the highway—even if traffic’s running 15 over the speed limit.

Lawyer in Utah

As West Jordan Utah attorneys, we practice in several areas of law including divorce, real estate, bankruptcy, business law, child custody, child support, adoption law and other areas.

In the interest of preventing an auto accident and a subsequent trip to the local personal injury lawyer, should self-driving cars bend to the will of human error?

It’s a sticky situation, to be sure. If Google programs its cars to disobey traffic laws, the next question is: how much? If self-driving cars start deliberately breaking the law, the search engine giant will be sure to face an onslaught of government and lawyer inquiries.

In the meantime, Google is working to program its cars to be more “aggressive” while still adhering to all traffic laws. Driving is a complex social practice, whether you’re driving on the interstate or around the shops of downtown West Jordan.

For driverless cars, the game is still very much a human one, law breaking and all.

NEW BILL PASSES REMOVING ALL PROTECTIONS AGAINST CONTAMINATED WATER

In order to survive, it’s widely assumed that food, shelter, clothing and water are needed. Regardless of whether you’re currently taking up residence in West Jordan, Utah or another location in our beautiful home state, more than likely, the basic necessities of life aren’t hard to come by. That being said, even with fresh running water being made readily available to most Americans, water contamination still occurs.

For example, in the United States, coal is often burned to produce enough electricity to keep cities up and running. However, when such a practice takes place, ash is produced as waste. Said ash, unfortunately, can potentially makes its way as a toxic substance into precious municipal water sources, causing incidents of wrongful death to come about. In such a situation, a lawyer might very well be needed.

Recently, as a way of addressing such terrible happenings, the Federal Government inefficiently took action and passed a bill that eliminates many of the actual laws that regulate the containment and monitoring of coal ash. Furthermore, the approved bill also gives states the responsibility of overseeing the processes of coal ash maintenance and disposal. Even worse, the bill mentions nothing of how close coal ash containment locations can be to public water sources.

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It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. Legal problems come to everyone. Whether it’s your son who gets in a car wreck, your uncle who loses his job and needs to file for bankruptcy, your sister’s brother who’s getting divorced, or a grandparent that passes away without a will -all of us have legal issues and questions that arise. So when you have a law question, call Ascent Law for your free consultation (801) 676-5506. We want to help you!