Automated vehicles and Australian personal injury compensation schemes

Abstract

This article argues that the existing regimes in Australia dealing with rehabilitation and compensation for injury and death arising from road trauma —the compulsory third party motor accident schemes and the national injury insurance schemes—will require reform to accommodate the adoption of automated vehicles on public roads. It suggests that victims injured by automated vehicles should not suffer differential entitlement to compensation or be arbitrarily excluded from the various schemes as a result of outmoded and narrow definitions or by the inability to establish ‘fault’ where a vehicle is highly automated. It argues that to ensure continuous coverage of the schemes there will need to be reforms to the threshold definitions of accident/personal injury. It further contends that the current fault-based systems may no longer remain a viable pathway for attributing liability in an accident involving highly automated vehicles and require reform.