Who Pays if My Car’s Auto-Braking Failed in a Michigan Crash?

By Attorney Manny Chahal · Updated July 2026 · Reading time: ~7 min

Most new cars sold in Michigan now come with automatic emergency braking, lane keeping, and blind spot warnings. These systems are marketed as safety nets, and sometimes the net has a hole in it. If the car did not brake when it should have, or slammed on the brakes when nothing was there, you may have more than one claim, and Michigan’s no-fault law under MCL 500.3135 decides how those claims fit together.

What these systems are, in plain terms

Carmakers call this technology ADAS, which stands for advanced driver assistance systems. It is software reading cameras and radar sensors, then deciding whether to warn you or act for you. The common features are automatic emergency braking, which applies the brakes on its own when it believes a collision is coming; forward collision warning, which only beeps at you; lane keeping assist; adaptive cruise control; and blind spot monitoring.

Every one of these assumes a human being is still driving. That is the legal starting point, and it matters enormously. This article is not about fully self-driving cars where nobody is at the wheel. It is about ordinary cars, driven by ordinary people, where the software was supposed to help and did not.

The three ways the technology gets it wrong

It does nothing at all

The car ahead stops short. Your vehicle was supposed to detect it and brake. It never did, and you hit them. Sensors can be blocked by road salt, slush, or a cracked windshield, all of which Michigan supplies in abundance. Cameras can be blinded by low winter sun. Some systems are simply less capable at night or with pedestrians and cyclists.

It reacts too late to matter

The brakes engage, but a half second after they needed to. The crash still happens, just at a lower speed. This one is easy to overlook because the system technically worked. It still may have contributed to your injuries.

It brakes for nothing, hard

This is often called phantom braking. The car slams to a stop on the highway because the software misread a shadow, an overpass, a sign, or a vehicle in the next lane. You get rear-ended by the driver behind you, or you are thrown against the seat belt at speed. Phantom braking is a real and reported phenomenon across multiple manufacturers, and it can hurt people badly even without another car involved.

Michigan pays your medical bills first, no matter who caused it

People ask constantly whether Michigan is a no-fault state. It is, and this is the part that helps you most in the first weeks after a crash. Personal injury protection benefits, usually called PIP, come from an auto insurance policy and are paid without anyone proving fault. MCL 500.3107 covers allowable expenses, meaning reasonable charges for reasonably necessary products, services, and accommodations for your care, recovery, or rehabilitation. It can also cover wage loss and replacement services.

So if your car’s braking system failed and you were hurt, you do not wait for anyone to admit the technology was defective before your treatment gets paid. You open a PIP claim, and it runs on its own track, separate from any fault fight. One caution worth stating plainly. Since Michigan’s 2019 reforms, drivers choose their level of PIP medical coverage. If you selected a capped or excluded option, your available benefits may be far smaller than you assumed. Pull your declarations page and look.

Three different claims, three different rules

A crash involving a failed driver-assist feature can produce more than one claim at the same time. They do not compete with each other. They answer different questions.

Suing the other driver: the injury threshold

To recover for pain and suffering from another driver in Michigan, your injury has to clear a bar. MCL 500.3135(1) allows a claim for noneconomic loss only if you suffered death, permanent serious disfigurement, or serious impairment of body function.

The statute defines serious impairment of body function in three parts. It must be objectively manifested, meaning observable or perceivable from actual symptoms or conditions by someone other than you. It must involve an important body function, one of great value, significance, or consequence to you. And it must affect your general ability to lead your normal life. The Legislature stated that the 2019 version of this section was intended to codify and give full effect to the Michigan Supreme Court’s opinion in McCormick v Carrier, 487 Mich 180 (2010). Under that framework there is no set minimum time your impairment must last, and the analysis compares your life before the crash to your life after it.

Fault still gets divided. MCL 500.3135(2)(b) says damages are assessed on the basis of comparative fault, and damages must not be assessed in favor of a party who is more than 50% at fault. MCL 600.2959 addresses the same idea from a different angle. Under that section, if your percentage of fault is greater than the combined fault of everyone else, the court reduces your economic damages by your percentage of fault, and noneconomic damages are not awarded at all.

This is exactly where the other side will try to use the technology against you. Expect an argument that you were relying on the car instead of driving it. Relying on a marketed safety feature is not the same as abandoning the wheel, but you should assume the insurer will blur that line.

Suing the manufacturer: a harder road, and worth knowing about

A claim against the company that built the vehicle or the system is a product liability claim, governed by a different set of statutes. Michigan makes these cases demanding on purpose.

Under MCL 600.2946(2), for a claim based on a production defect, the manufacturer or seller is not liable unless you establish that the product was not reasonably safe when the specific unit left their control, and that a practical and technically feasible alternative production practice was available that would have prevented the harm without significantly impairing the product’s usefulness or desirability to users and without creating an equal or greater risk of harm to others. That is a real burden, and it usually requires engineering experts.

There is a second hurdle worth knowing about before you get your hopes up. MCL 600.2946(4) creates a rebuttable presumption that the manufacturer or seller is not liable if the aspect of the product that allegedly caused the harm was in compliance with standards relevant to the event set forth in a federal or state statute, or was approved by or complied with regulations or standards of a federal or state agency responsible for reviewing the safety of the product. Braking systems sit squarely in a federally regulated space, so expect this argument. The presumption is rebuttable, meaning it can be overcome, but you should understand it is there.

There is also a cap. MCL 600.2946a(1) limits noneconomic damages in a product liability action to $280,000, or $500,000 where the defect caused death or permanent loss of a vital bodily function. Those printed figures are not the whole story, because the same subsection directs the state treasurer to adjust the limits at the end of each calendar year, so the number that actually applies to a case filed today is higher than what the statute text shows. The higher limit also does not apply to a defendant if the trier of fact determines the death or loss resulted from that defendant’s gross negligence, or if the court finds the matters stated in section 2949a are true. None of that makes a product claim hopeless. It means the case has to be built early, before evidence disappears.

The evidence that vanishes

Modern vehicles record data. Event data recorders and system logs may show whether the braking system detected an object, whether it engaged, and when. That data can be overwritten, and the vehicle itself can be repaired, sold, or scrapped by an insurer within weeks. Once the car is gone, proving what the software did becomes very hard. If you think the technology played a role, say so before anyone disposes of the vehicle.

Deadlines you cannot miss

Different claims, different clocks. These are the ones that end cases.

• PIP notice, one year. Under MCL 500.3145, an action for PIP benefits cannot be started more than 1 year after the accident unless written notice of injury was given to the insurer within 1 year of the accident, or the insurer already paid benefits for the injury.
• The one-year-back rule. The same section provides that you may not recover benefits for any portion of the loss incurred more than 1 year before the date the action was commenced. Waiting costs you money even if your case is technically alive.
• Injury lawsuits, three years. MCL 600.5805(2) sets a 3 year period for actions to recover damages for death or injury to a person or property.
• Vehicle damage. MCL 500.3135(3)(e) allows recovery of up to $3,000 for damage to a motor vehicle for accidents occurring after July 1, 2020, to the extent the damage is not covered by insurance.

Dates in a specific case can shift for reasons this article cannot cover. Treat these as reasons to move early, not as a calendar you should manage on your own.

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