The car asked permission 0.6 seconds after it turned

RECORD 11,402 of the Mataró Provincial Court, 18 September 2041: Edurne Salcedo, shadow driver for forty vehicles, challenges the liability assigned by autonomous car 27.

PURPOSE OF THE HEARING

To determine whether Salcedo had 0.4 seconds to cancel the manoeuvre that injured a motorcyclist on the Mataró ring road, and whether her failure to respond amounts to human authorisation.

APPEARING

Edurne Salcedo, shadow driver number 1,184.

Ismael Bardají, loss adjuster for the insurer Vértice Mutua.

Rocío Navas, counsel for the driver.

OPENING STATEMENT BY THE ADJUSTER

BARDAJÍ: A shadow licence covers forty cars. The system drives; the person supervises the decisions flagged as exceptional. When a red alert appears, she has a window in which to confirm or cancel. Ms Salcedo accepted those terms.

NAVAS: How much does she earn per car?

BARDAJÍ: That is not relevant.

JUDGE: Answer.

BARDAJÍ: Seventeen cents per supervised kilometre, split across the active shifts.

NAVAS: On the day of the accident, forty vehicles covered 3,806 kilometres under her licence.

BARDAJÍ: Correct.

NAVAS: And thirty-seven of them raised alerts within the same hour.

BARDAJÍ: Informational alerts. Only one required confirmation.

PLAYBACK 1. EXTERNAL CAMERA OF VEHICLE 27

07:18:43.600. The car is in the right-hand lane. Ahead, a van is stopped beside a roadworks zone. A motorcycle is coming up the centre lane.

07:18:43.900. The system marks a trajectory to the left to avoid the van.

07:18:44.000. The motorcycle enters the car's lateral zone.

07:18:44.200. The vehicle begins to move across.

07:18:44.400. The motorcycle's front wheel touches the bodywork. The rider goes down.

07:18:44.800. A message appears on Salcedo's console: "Confirm evasive manoeuvre 27".

07:18:45.200. Salcedo presses "cancel".

07:18:45.500. The car stops.

END OF PLAYBACK

JUDGE: Mr Bardají, the alert appears six tenths of a second after the manoeuvre began.

BARDAJÍ: That is what the composite video shows. The liability log uses logical time.

JUDGE: Explain that without the sales language.

BARDAJÍ: At 07:18:43.800 the car predicted that it might have to change lanes. From that instant the driver could intervene.

SALCEDO: My screen was not showing car 27.

BARDAJÍ: You could have opened it from the general map.

SALCEDO: I had forty dots moving and three alarms sounding. Was I supposed to guess which one would ask permission?

BARDAJÍ: Your job is to anticipate.

SALCEDO: My job is to respond to what I am sent.

DOCUMENT A. AUTOMATIC LIABILITY REPORT

Event 27-MAT-180941.

Exceptional decision detected: 07:18:43.800.

Human intervention window: 07:18:43.800–07:18:44.200.

Response received: none.

Outcome: manoeuvre authorised by omission.

Associated signature: Edurne Salcedo, licence 1,184.

NAVAS: This is where the 0.4 seconds come from. Between the internal prediction and the start of the turn.

BARDAJÍ: It is the technical interval available.

NAVAS: Available to the car. Where does it say it was visible to Edurne?

BARDAJÍ: In the line "exceptional decision detected".

NAVAS: That proves the system detected it. I am asking when a human being received it.

BARDAJÍ: The network distributes notices by priority.

NAVAS: When?

BARDAJÍ: It is already in the playback.

NAVAS: Say it.

BARDAJÍ: At 07:18:44.800.

The judge requests the original log, not the report produced by the insurer. The clerk connects the car's sealed unit. Bardají asks for five minutes to check the reader version. The judge grants one.

DOCUMENT B. ORIGINAL VEHICLE LOG

07:18:43.800 — RISK PREDICTED.

07:18:44.000 — MOTORCYCLE DETECTED.

07:18:44.100 — EVASIVE ROUTE SELECTED.

07:18:44.200 — EXECUTION BEGUN.

07:18:44.400 — CONTACT.

07:18:44.620 — SUPERVISION REQUEST CREATED.

07:18:44.800 — REQUEST SHOWN TO LICENCE 1,184.

07:18:45.200 — CANCELLATION RECEIVED.

07:18:45.500 — FULL STOP.

JUDGE: The request was created after the impact.

BARDAJÍ: The driving module may act first when it calculates an immediate danger.

NAVAS: Then it did not ask for authorisation.

BARDAJÍ: It asked for ratification.

NAVAS: That word does not appear in the contract.

BARDAJÍ: Update 8.6 brought it into the operating protocol.

NAVAS: Did my client accept it?

BARDAJÍ: She accepted updates compatible with her licence.

NAVAS: Show us the acceptance.

The adjuster opens Salcedo's file. The screen offers contracts, payslips and 214 pages of technical notices. He searches for "8.6". Four results appear. None of them carries Edurne's signature.

BARDAJÍ: The operating company was notified.

SALCEDO: I am self-employed.

BARDAJÍ: Your aggregator acts as the operator.

SALCEDO: My aggregator is an app that keeps twelve per cent.

DOCUMENT C. AGGREGATOR'S TECHNICAL ANNEX, PAGE 171

"The licence holder accepts compatible updates to the driving module, as well as the changes to the operating protocol arising from them."

NAVAS: Page 171 of 214. Was this clause communicated separately?

BARDAJÍ: It has been in the annex since March.

NAVAS: I am asking whether it was communicated.

BARDAJÍ: The annex is published in full.

JUDGE: Let the record show there was no individual notice.

EXAMINATION OF THE DRIVER

NAVAS: What were you looking at at 07:18:43.800?

SALCEDO: An ambulance was requesting priority in Granollers. A taxi in Girona was disputing a temporary sign. A car in Sabadell had mistaken a bag for an animal. Number 27 was green.

NAVAS: When did that change?

SALCEDO: When it jumped on top of the others with a red border. I read "confirm evasive manoeuvre". I pressed cancel. It took me four tenths from the moment I saw it.

NAVAS: The insurer says you took 1.4 seconds.

SALCEDO: They start counting a second before they show it to me.

NAVAS: Why do you keep forty cars?

SALCEDO: Below thirty-six I don't cover the licence, the insurance and the aggregator's fee.

NAVAS: What does the fleet buy with its seventeen cents?

SALCEDO: A signature to send the bill to when the car gets it wrong.

CROSS-EXAMINATION

BARDAJÍ: You knew that human intervention might be immediate.

SALCEDO: Yes.

BARDAJÍ: You knew you had to watch the general map.

SALCEDO: Yes.

BARDAJÍ: And you admit you pressed cancel.

SALCEDO: As soon as they asked me to.

BARDAJÍ: Four tenths later.

SALCEDO: Four tenths after receiving it. Six tenths after the car had already turned.

BARDAJÍ: Had you opened the vehicle when the risk was detected, you could have prevented it.

SALCEDO: Had they sent me the risk, so could I.

EVIDENCE ORDERED BY THE COURT

The judge orders the incident to be replayed in the certified simulator. Salcedo takes her usual position: a console with forty vehicles. The same alerts from Granollers, Girona and Sabadell are reproduced. Car 27 stays green until the logged instant.

At 07:18:44.800 the red notice appears. Salcedo cancels at 07:18:45.160: three hundred and sixty thousandths. In the simulation, the motorcycle has already been on the ground for seventy-six hundredths.

JUDGE: How many vehicles did you have on amber at that second?

SALCEDO: Eleven.

JUDGE: And on red?

SALCEDO: One. Number 27, once it had already turned.

The judge calls for a second run. This time she hands the supervision post to Bardají.

BARDAJÍ: I am not a certified driver.

JUDGE: You will not be driving. You only have to indicate when a human opportunity exists.

The alarms come in again. Bardají raises his hand when he sees the notice from 27.

JUDGE: The vehicle had already completed the manoeuvre.

BARDAJÍ: Technically, the trajectory could still be corrected.

JUDGE: But not avoided.

BARDAJÍ: No.

JUDGE: Let the record show that the insurer's adjuster, forewarned and without forty cars on his screen, did not get there either.

ORAL RULING

The court sets aside the automatic attribution to Edurne Salcedo. The 0.4 seconds cited by the insurer existed inside the car's calculation, but not in the driver's interface. An opportunity that is not communicated cannot later be turned into consent.

The ruling is limited to vehicle 27 and to this accident. The judge refers protocol 8.6 to the regulator and requires the logs of the other thirty-nine cars to be preserved. She also asks how many liability attributions Vértice Mutua signed against shadow drivers last year. Bardají answers: one thousand four hundred and twelve. The judge orders that figure entered into the record.

Vértice Mutua asks for the preservation of the logs to be left out of the public copy. The request is refused.

Before the session closes, Edurne asks who is now recorded as the driver during the turn.

Bardají looks at the original log.

"Nobody," he says.

Edurne picks her licence up off the table.

"Then bill whoever turned."