Mercedes to accept legal responsibility for accidents involving self-driving cars

Mercedes has announced that it will take legal responsibility for any crashes that occur while its self-driving systems are engaged. The company is currently in the process of deploying "Drive Pilot" technology for its new S-Class and EQS saloon models, which is "Level 3" for autonomy on a six-tier system devised by Society of Automotive Engineers, ranging from Level 0 (no automated driver assistance) to Level 5 (the car drives itself everywhere without any input from the vehicle occupants). Level 3 autonomy means that drivers may take their hands off the wheel and undertake other tasks, such as reading a book, while the car assumes full control of all driving functions. However, this is only in specific conditions, such as in low-speed traffic on motorways, and the person in the driver's seat must be able to retake control within a few seconds of an alert from the car. This is a big leap from Level 2 autonomy, which requires hands-on-wheel supervision from the driver at all times, and which is currently commonplace on new cars in the form of adaptive cruise control and automated lane-keeping. Some cars from the likes of Audi, Mercedes, BMW, Genesis and Tesla have such advanced systems that they are considered somewhere between Levels 2 and 3 -- dubbed by experts as Level 2 .