Impounded Car Insurance UK source seized car insurance policies to enable the release of a vehicle that is being held in a police compound.
According to experts, driverless cars could take over Britain’s roads as soon as 2020. By removing bad driving and human error from our roads, driverless cars could cause car insurance prices to plummet.
Driverless cars have been in the headlines for some time now and it’s no surprise that many people are excited about the benefits that this technology will bring. Roads will be much safer once these vehicles arrive and there will be far fewer accidents. It makes sense that many are now predicting that our future car insurance premiums will be much lower.
If we look at current statistics, 94% of all car insurance claims are a result of car park incidents and whiplash claims. These claims are currently costing insurance companies, and therefore motorists, approximately £3bn each year. The technology for driverless cars will eliminate these problems as your car will park for you, brake when required and automatically avoid colliding with pedestrians or any other object in its’ path. As a result experts are stating that injuries and deaths caused by collisions will be almost nonexistent.
Insurance companies already offer reduced premiums for cars with some form of driverless technology, such as those with self-parking functions or lane control systems.
Will we still need car insurance when driverless technology takes over?
Car insurance does have a future. There will always be the need for some level of car insurance policy. Even if driverless technology eliminates the requirement to insure against causing collisions or injuries, we will still need to insure our cars to cover theft or damage from falling trees etc.
There will also be classic car enthusiasts and motorists who opt to drive normally, meaning that there will always be mixed types of vehicles on the roads requiring some form of insurance.
If a driverless vehicle crashes, who will be liable?
Although driverless cars are set to wipe out the majority of car insurance claims, malfunctions and system errors that result in a collision will always be a possibility.
Currently when you receive a quote from an insurance provider it is under the basis that you are liable to pay for damange or injury that you cause, be it to your own vehicle & passengers or to another vehicle and the people in it.
If a driverless vehicle is involved in a collision it is not yet clear wether the manufacturer of the vehicle will be liable. Liability is likely going to be a big point for discussion in the future of driverless vehicles and may ultimately become a matter for courts to rule on.
How safe are driverless cars going to be?
By removing the risk of human error, driverless technology looks set to make transport by car much safer than it ever can be with standard vehicles.
However, as with all technology there will always be a risk of something going wrong. If a system error occurs and results in a collision the outcome could be much worse than it would be with a driver in charge of the car able to take action.
The chance of an incident like this should be extremely low and the risk of a serious accident will still be much lower with driverless technology in place than it is on the roads of today.
