Connected and Autonomous Vehicles - Legal Issues in Greece, Europe and USA

Autonomous (AV) and Connected Vehicle (CV), often mentioned as CAV's, rush their way into automobile market. Consumer cars are increasingly equipped with systems that perform driving functions, either by themselves or by communicating with external systems, thus cancelling the need for a person to be driving. Given the fact that road traffic is a highly regulated area, as it bears huge risks for all traffic users, redefining current regulations is more than ever a necessity. Many countries in the EU and many states of the USA are making effort to create the appropriate legal conditions for full CAV distribution, through amendments of current regulation or introduction of new more sufficient laws and standards. Most of legislative efforts so far, aim in introducing definitions or determine on road testing procedures though there are few more invasive regulations. Two parameters are taken into consideration on most cases: tort liability and data privacy. Tort liability is used to define who is to blame in case of an accident. Data Privacy is also very important as data sharing is greatly involved in CAV's operation. This paper presents current legal framework in EU, USA and Greece along with the most significant efforts in adopting new CAV friendly legislation, leading to a variety of issues that need to be addressed so as to ensure public safety and to ease CAV's deployment.