[bob33212]

How much authority do they have on private property? If I buy a farm who has the authority to stop me from driving remote control or autonomous cars on that farm? If i make that farm accessible to the public to buy my vegetables how does that change?

[danso]

NHTSA investigates vehicle safety; whether the accident occurs on private or public property is irrelevant. e.g. when actor Anton Yelchin was killed by his Jeep in his own driveway, the NHTSA issued a statement:

https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/chrysler/2016/06/20/j...

[flowerlad]

What happens on your private property is your business... up until the point you allow public access. If public has access then normal laws governing motor vehicles are applicable even on your private property.

[slg]

>If public has access then normal laws governing motor vehicles are applicable

Laws certainly apply, but not necessarily "normal laws governing motor vehicles". For example, you probably can't be ticketed for running a stop sign in a parking lot on private property. However, you would almost certainly be liable for damage if running that stop sign caused an accident and you could be potentially charged with some type of generic reckless driving offense. Obviously the laws vary by jurisdiction.

[bigiain]

As you say, it depends on the jurisdiction.

Here (Australia) the rules define "road related areas" as including private property that does not have a "normally locked gate" protecting access.

This means all road rules (including stop signs, alcohol/drug rules, mobile phone use, and speed limits) apply in places like publicly accessible carparks on private property, and homeowner's driveways if they do not have a "normally locked gate". People have been booked for drink driving and mobile phone use sitting in their cars in their own driveways here (almost certainly after "failing the attitude test" and pissing a cop off enough for them to punitively enforce a stupid interpretation of a poorly written law, but that's a different rant...)

[dragonwriter]

In CA, local governments can and often do pass ordinances allowing Vehicle Code enforcement on certain. Private property; this is most common on parking lots and private roads that are generally open to the public.

And law enforcement investigates and assigns fault in reports for accidents on private property even where vehicle code (other than hit and run and DUI, which IIRC apply everywhere) does not apply.

[elipsey]

IANAL, but it seems like the most conservative expectation (baring some new law or clarification) would be that you're simply liable in the same way as if you were driving if something bad happens. Similarly, someone with standing might try suing the automaker if autopilot was implicated as defective or unsafe.

It's probably not clear yet how safe the "summon" feature is. Presumably the sample of it's performance is still small, but those videos don't look very encouraging, not just in the sense the car made "mistakes" like failing to yield, but also qualitatively. I would certainly have misgivings about being responsible for the results.

It seems like a less risky strategy to improve fully autonomous operation this way then on the freeway, but still risky. Perhaps the thinking is that parking lots are expected to be low speed, low stakes environments, and the car is pretty good at detecting pedestrians and avoiding low speed collisions, so the likeliest problem is property damage. However, people have a way of occasionally doing things that are hard to predict or imagine when we are defining our safety assumptions.

In the worst case, a wrongful death suit or something similar might be affordable in dollars but probably not publicity. Even a few less severe accidents seem likely to test the patience of both regulators and the public. Maybe autopilot will get better with more real world use and training data. Or maybe it won’t, or not fast enough. I’m really curious to see how this turns out, but not be being personally responsible when somebody gets hurt :(

[teraflop]

As others have said, this is going to vary a lot depending on where you are. For the most part, the enforcement powers of the NHTSA are limited to things like prohibiting the sale of vehicles that don't meet safety standards. What you actually do with the vehicle once you have it is between you and your local law enforcement.