Your Legal Rights at Work

High Tech Malfunctions In Your Vehicle And Car Accidents: Who Should You Sue?

by Lewis Hamilton

Cars are fast becoming more high-tech, with dashboards that have digital readouts only the driver can read on his/her side of the windshield, dashboards operated by voice commands, built-in telephone and voice technology, GPS positioning and accurate, up-to-date road construction and detour maps. So, what happens when some of this technology fails and you get into a car accident because of it? Who do you sue? That depends on your type of car accident and exactly what lead you to be in the accident, as the following information will show.

Failures in the Road Trip Mapping Tech

Dashboard technology, specifically the road construction and detour maps, help you navigate around complex and inconvenient road construction sites. This technology automatically reroutes your travel plan to help you get to your destination without losing much time. If there is a failure in this technology and you are rerouted off the end of a bridge or an overpass that is under construction, or just end up in an accident attempting to follow the instructions provided by this tech in your vehicle, then you may want to have the program checked for failures. If there are glitches or failures in your road mapping and trip instruction, then you can sue the vehicle's manufacturer.

Failures in the Road Positioning Tech

Road positioning technology alerts you to the closeness of other vehicles. It also alerts you to potential impact before it occurs in order to give you a chance to speed up out of harm's way. When you receive no notice from your vehicle's computer that another car or truck was too close or about to hit you, and then you get into an accident, you may have a split lawsuit. This means you can sue both the manufacturer of the vehicle for the failure of this technology as well as sue the other driver that hit you. Both the other driver and your vehicle's manufacturer share a part in your vehicular misfortunes and medical bills, so they will both need to pony up to help you cover your vehicular repairs and medical costs.

Trying to Prove the Tech Was Responsible

Before you can launch into a lawsuit against any manufacturer, you will have to prove that the onboard computer, its programming, and/or something else defaulted and caused the tech failure linked to your accident. Since all known failures of vehicular components, including the new computerized systems, need to be reported to the manufacturer, the police and the public for safety precautions, you may be able to find other victims of faulty automotive tech and have them attest to the problems they had. If you cannot find adequate proof that there was a problem with the tech in your vehicle, you may only be able to pursue a standard lawsuit against other drivers involved (so long as it is clear that the other driver definitely has some liability in the case). Contact a car accident attorney for more information.

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