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Comment by emteycz | Hacker News Reader

I thought the law is very specific in this case. The responsibility is driver's except in cases when it explicitly isn't - which definitely wasn't this case as no vehicle in EU had the necessary approval when it happened, and I'm not sure, but maybe there wasn't any law whatsoever about autonomous vehicles and transfer of responsibility back then - which makes the driver unquestionably responsible.

Edit: I thought this is in Germany, so I'm wrong. My bad.

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The families of the Sandy Hook school shooting victims sued Remington and settled for $73 million, even though Remington didn't directly sell the gun to the shooter, or violate any other laws regulating the sale of firearms:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/15/nyregion/sandy-hook-famil...

The NYT describes the plaintiff's argument as focused on Remington's marketing strategy:

> The families contended that Remington violated state law by promoting the weapon with an approach that appealed to so-called couch commandos and troubled young men like the gunman who committed the Sandy Hook massacre.

> Nicole Hockley, whose 6-year-old son Dylan was killed, said the documents included in the settlement were crucial — and “paint a picture of a company that lost its way, choosing more aggressive marketing campaigns for profit.”

The U.S. is a common law jurisdiction, which (among other things) means that when there is a novel factor involved, usually the courts are first to decide how much it matters. Autopilot was a very novel factor at this time, so the courts need to decide if it matters enough to reduce the criminal penalties. In the absence of an explicit law, that's just how it works. The driver doesn't become responsible -- responsibility becomes an open question.

In civil law jurisdictions, this works differently.

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