Autonomous driving is and increasing phenomenon in several countries and recently it has involved Italy too. This paper aims to provide a general picture of the potential future intersections between the said phenomenon and the criminal law.
The law no. 68 .of 2015 introduced new criminal offences, aimed to protect the environment, life and physical integrity of affiliates in various degree and shapes. It also introduced for environmental crimes to be subjected to a mechanism of degradation of the criminal offense and to avail of political and criminal tools already used successfully in other areas. Despite many changes have also affected decree no. 152 of 2006, the legislator didn’t clarify the role of the precautionary principle in the environmental criminal law. Far from being confined to a restricted space, like the the latest judgements of the Supreme Court suggested, the precautionary principle could know an expansion, contributing to the increase of area of criminal relevance concerning cases referred to articles 452 bis, 452 ter, 452 quinquies of Criminal Code.