Trial Lawyers Renew Lobbying Push Against Self-Driving Cars, Citing Threat to Accident Litigation

A renewed debate is intensifying over whether the trial bar is standing in the way of autonomous vehicles, as critics accuse plaintiffs' lawyers of lobbying against self-driving cars to protect a lucrative pipeline of auto-accident litigation. The controversy resurfaced after economist Alex Tabarrok laid out the case in a widely circulated post on the blog Marginal Revolution, which argues that organized plaintiffs' attorneys have spent years opposing legislation that would ease the deployment of autonomous vehicles (AVs).