Robotaxis — arriving at a future near you(2)

Safety questioned

But safety is the real concern. When that vehicle in Wuhan failed to see the scooter, local residents started to doubt the safety and reliability of driverless vehicles, as manufacturers have long claimed they are safer than human drivers.

At an event in May, Baidu's vice-president, Wang Yunpeng, said the number of insurance claims of its Apollo Go vehicles over the past two years was one 14th of that for human drivers.

In the second quarter of this year, Baidu's Apollo Go provided about 899,000 rides for passengers, up 26 percent year-on-year. As of July 28, the cumulative rides provided to the public by Apollo Go surpassed 7 million, the company said in its latest financial results.

The safety level of autonomous driving is 10 times that of manned driving, according to Pony.ai vice-president, Zhang Ning. The company had conducted 3.5 million km of driverless testing globally as of May this year.

However, a robotaxi doesn't have a quick solution when an injured passenger or road user needs help and needs to wait until the fleet operator sends someone to the scene.

If the accident is a minor one, the insurance company can try to settle and offer a certain amount of money.

However, the issue becomes muddier in the case of a more severe accident that causes injury or death and entails prison time.

It is likely the fleet company will be held accountable, but it is unclear who would be sent to jail — the software engineer, the CEO, the company owner, or possibly more than one of them.