According to statements by the EU Commission, 95% of all traffic accidents involve human error, and in 76% of accidents, humans are solely to blame [1]. A similar picture also emerges in the settlement of damages by Allianz Versicherungs-AG, and in detailed analyses of the accident research by Allianz Center for Technology. At the same time, human drivers set high standards with regard to road traffic safety. Based on market figures over the past few years, in Germany, a passenger car causes material damage only every 250.000 km, and personal injury every 2.3 million km. Since the 1960s, the number of liability claims per passenger car has decreased to a third of the previous figure, and today the claims frequency is at around 60 claims per 1.000 insured units per year [2].

Above the level of high vehicle automation [3] from which the driver is no longer responsible for continuously monitoring the vehicle and the driving task, however, completely new issues will arise in the road traffic accident statistics. In the case of highly automated driving, extremely high requirements must be placed on vehicle safety and on protecting functions in order to not only keep road traffic safety at the current level, but actually improve it significantly. Unfortunately, accidents in the USA with vehicle prototypes in highly automated driving mode show that some accidents cannot be prevented with the current state of technology. Coupled with this is the question as to how cases can be investigated should an accident or criminal misconduct involving a highly automated vehicle occur after the legal authorization of highly automated driving functions and their introduction into the market in the EU.

As explained elsewhere [4], the German liability and insurance system is well suited to covering the risks that exist in the operation of highly automated vehicles. However, the selective operation of the vehicle by the driver and by a highly automated driving function raises fundamental questions concerning the investigation of cases in the event of accidents or traffic offenses.

Early on, Allianz already supported creating conditions so that accidents involving automated vehicles can be re- constructed in the future in order that victim protection, clarification of liability, and regress and product liability claims can still be ensured in a non-discriminatory manner. This is because, in the course of the motor vehicle insurer investigating a case and settling claims, particular importance is attached principally to the driving mode (highly automated driving/transfer phase/driver in control) in which the vehicle was moving at the time of the accident or the traffic offense. On the one hand, a driving error by the driver could be the cause of damage, on the other hand, errors by sensors, inadequate algorithms, deficient software quality or interoperability of systems cannot be ruled out as the cause of an accident. The driver’s statement that a collision or non-compliance with traffic regulations occurred after handing over control to the vehicle cannot be verified or disproved without a sufficient set of relevant data.