One of the most critical phases of any commercial trucking accident trial is the testimony of the truck driver, and with AI and autonomous trucking making enormous strides in 2025, the litigation landscape is quickly changing. In many jurisdictions, the focus of the plaintiff’s negligence claims is the driver’s conduct behind the wheel that allegedly caused the at-issue accident. Was the driver attentive and focused, or was the driver distracted? Was the driver in compliance with rules and regulations, or had the driver’s commercial driver’s license (CDL) lapsed and had the driver exceeded the limit on hours of service?
These substantive questions, and many more like them, are often the focus of direct and cross-examination during a trucking trial. Equally as important in most cases is how the driver presents to the jury. Does the driver seem honest, hardworking and credible, striking that balance between appreciating the seriousness of the situation without admitting liability, or does the driver present as aloof, inattentive, or worst of all, dishonest?
All good trial attorneys take time to prepare their key witnesses for trial, ensuring that the witnesses, first and foremost, tell the truth, but also that the witnesses are ready for likely questions they will face and are likely to be presented favorably to a jury. With a historically heavy emphasis on driver conduct in modern driver-centric trucking trials, adequate preparation of the driver has long been a critical component to trial success, but the next big question trucking trial attorneys will have to answer is what they should do at trial when their truck has no driver.
With fully automated, driverless trucks hitting the road initially in Texas this year before expanding to other areas as a result of recent technological developments from companies like Pittsburgh-based Aurora Innovation, trucking trials in the near future will also be driverless. Without a driver, the most important witness in a future trucking trial is likely to be the truck itself. Trial attorneys will still need to prepare their witness but in a very different sense.
As has already been seen in litigation involving other semi-driverless technologies in passenger vehicles, automated trucks are going to be able to tell their version of events with data. Using an array of sensors and cameras, automated trucks gather extensive amounts of information regarding their surroundings—in some cases, a single fully automated vehicle can generate terabytes of data per hour. The successful trial attorney, with the help of data professionals, engineers, and other technical experts will be able to take this almost overwhelming amount of raw information, distill it into its most relevant components, and tell the story of the accident from the perspective of the truck.
The substantive information about the circumstances of the accident will continue to be paramount. Fundamentally, speed and distance measurements and data will be essential. Relying on the very data that the autonomous software utilizes to operate on the roadway, the successful trial attorney will be able to relay to the jury how fast the truck was moving, how far away from other objects and individuals, including the plaintiff, the truck was at various points in time, and the speed and direction of other vehicles on the road. The collected data will be able illustrate speed at impact, the impact angle, and any secondary impacts, all of which are critical to the reconstruction of the accident for the jury and can even relate, with the help of biomechanical engineers and physicians, to the nature and extent of the plaintiff’s alleged injuries.
In addition, trial attorneys should be able to illustrate for the jury when the truck perceived the plaintiff based on the data collected by the truck’s autonomous systems as well as how the truck reacted, and even why the truck reacted the way it did. Much in the way that human factors experts have been retained and consulted for years to illustrate a driver’s perception, reaction time, and decision making, trial attorneys should be able to utilize collected data to convey the same concepts to the jury.
In order for a trial attorney to make the best use of the voluminous data, motor carriers, technology companies, and counsel will need to be extremely organized. In some jurisdictions, it can be years between an accident and an eventual lawsuit, so it will be extremely important to maintain and preserve any accident data as well as software versions and store the same in an organized and usable manner. As data management technologies also improve with the incorporation and utilization of artificial intelligence to store and organize large amounts of data, it should be theoretically easier for counsel to stay ready to respond to litigation.
By the same token, it is worth noting that the introduction of artificial intelligence to store, maintain, and organize accident and truck data introduces another element subject to the scrutiny of a sharp plaintiff’s attorney. Much in the way that truck drivers need to present as trustworthy to a jury, so too must the data collection and storage methods in an autonomous trucking trial. Even if defense attorneys can clear the initial hurdle of utilizing the truck to tell the story of the accident, defense attorneys will also need that story to be credible.
Successful trial attorneys in this new era of autonomous trucking will need to utilize new approaches, technologies, and experts to defend their autonomous trucking clients, but treating the truck as the driver and giving consideration to the same key issues of substantive testimony and credibility are great places to start.
