(Bloomberg) — Imagine a robot car with no one behind the wheelhitting another driverless car. Who’s at fault?

The answer: No one knows. But plaintiff’s lawyers are salivatingat the prospects for big paydays from such accidents. If computersroutinely crash, they say, then so will cars operated by them. Andwith no one behind the wheel, lawyers say they can go after almostanyone even remotely involved.

“You’re going to get a whole host of new defendants,” said KevinDean, who is suing General Motors Co. over its faulty ignitionswitches and Takata Corp. over air-bag failures. “Computerprogrammers, computer companies, designers of algorithms, Google,mapping companies, even states. It’s going to be very fertileground for lawyers.”

Driverless cars from Google Inc. and other manufacturers aretouted as leading to an accident-free future, where precise, robotreflexes keep passengers out of harm’s way. That automotive utopiamay one day eliminate death on the highway, proponents say. Butbefore then, it’s inevitable that first- generation robot cars aregoing to collide with other driverless vehicles and those withaccident-prone humans behind the wheel.

Possible roadblock

“There is going to be a moment in time when there’s going to bea crash and it’s going to be undetermined who or what was atfault,” said David Strickland, former head of the National HighwayTraffic Safety Administration and now a partner at the Venable LLPlaw firm in Washington. “That’s where the difficulty begins.”

Consumer concerns about liability could represent a roadblock toacceptance of driverless cars. That’s why Volvo Cars, Google andDaimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz have all pledged to accept liability iftheir vehicles cause an accident.

“We want customers to trust we’ve done a really good job,” saidAnders Eugensson, Volvo’s director of government affairs. “That’swhy we say if anything happens, we assume liability. We feel wecan’t launch vehicles to customers unless we’re able to make thatstatement.”

But plaintiff’s lawyers don’t make much of that pledge, whichthey see as merely a marketing ploy.

“Every car manufacturer says, ‘We absolutely stand behind ourcar if there’s anything wrong with it,”’ said David Bright, aCorpus Christi, Texas, lawyer who represents victims in auto-defect cases. “Then they say, ‘There’s nothing wrong with it.’”

Not foreseen

What makes the issue so tricky is that current law holds a carowner, often the driver, responsible for accidents, first andforemost. If an owner wants to blame the manufacturer, then he orshe must prove the company was negligent in some way. But modernproduct-liability law didn’t contemplate cars without drivers.

“There’s going to have to be some changes to the laws,”Strickland said. “There is no such thing right now that says themanufacturer of the automated system is financially responsible forcrashes.”

And the owners of self-driving cars might not feel soresponsible in a collision, especially if they’re sleeping in theback seat or, as Volvo’s Eugensson suggested, “updatingFacebook.”

No clarity

“No one wants to be sued or be arrested for a crash that theywere powerless to prevent,” said Bryant Walker Smith, assistantprofessor of law at the University of South Carolina who haswritten extensively on driverless-car liability.

So the first owner of a driverless car to be in such an accidentwill have an opportunity to set a precedent by suing the maker ofthe autonomous system, which could be a car company or a technologyfirm. Such a case might also test current insurance-coveragenotions, which presume that the driver is primarilyresponsible.

Anyone suing won’t find much clarity in existing case law. Asearch of court records found limited litigation over autonomousfeatures, such as automatic braking or lane-keeping, which steers acar back into the correct position if it crosses the line.

Volvo has asked that regulators come up with uniform rules ofthe road for driverless cars. The automaker is concerned that“there’s going to be a patchwork of regulations in the U.S. fromdifferent states,” Eugensson said.

Google’s track

This month, California proposed rules for driverless cars thatwould require a human always be ready to take the wheel. Theproposals would also compel the companies creating the cars to filemonthly reports on their performance. Google said it was “gravelydisappointed” in the proposed rules, which could set the standardfor autonomous-car regulations nationwide.

Google, which has developed a car with no steering wheel or gaspedal, is on a fast track. It plans to make its self-driving carsunit a standalone business next year and someday operate them in aride-hailing service, according to a person briefed on thecompany’s strategy.

While lawyers focus on the safety of autonomous autos, humanerror remains the cause of more than 90 percent of the 33,000fatalities on U.S. roads annually. Robot cars are expected toradically reduce that number. And they’ll be backed by the world’srichest technology companies and automakers.

“If you have to be hit by a car, then you should hope thatyou’re hit by an automated car because you will likely haverecourse to a company or companies with far deeper pockets thanyour average driver, vehicle owner or insurance policy,” Smithsaid.

Related: California DMV puts brakes on self-driving cartechnology

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