If your self-driving car crashes, who gets sued? Google, Uber, and Ford would rather it be you, according to some experts.

Tech companies making self-driving cars could become better protected under the law than those car’s owners, experts warn, as the announcement came of a powerful new coalition of automakers and big tech companies forming to take on US government regulations around self-driving vehicles.

Google, Uber, Lyft, Ford and Volvo, all of which are working on self-driving car technology, will lobby as the Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets to bring autonomous vehicles to the road across the US.

Heading it up will be David Strickland, the former administrator of the National Highway Traffic Administration, the same group he will now be working to influence. The lobbying group argues that self-driving vehicles will reduce the severity and frequency of crashes. According to the US Department of Transportation, 94% of car crashes are caused by human error.

There’s general consensus that self-driving cars will eventually make roads safer (ask any parent of a Snapchatting teen how much they trust drivers). Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death among those 15 to 29 years old.

The first task for the lobbying group will be just rolling out self-driving cars.

But the liability issues will be thorny. A powerful corporate lobbying force may pose a new challenge for personal injury lawyers, who are already wary of the technology, while some safety researchers and accident lawyers worry that the lobbying group could unfairly protect tech companies and app makers over their human car owners.

“I’m worried a lobbying group would try to shield manufacturers and app designers over drivers,” said Daniel Vega, an accident and personal injury lawyer based in San Francisco. “When these programs fail, who’s responsible?”

Statistician Susan Paddock said the only way to get self-driving cars out on the road was if consumers become comfortable with a great deal of uncertainty.

“It’s very challenging to test drive these vehicles as far and as long as they need to be in order to statistically know their performance,” Pollock said. “Even if autonomous vehicle fleets are driven 10m miles, one still would not be able to draw statistical conclusions about safety and reliability.”

“Uncertainty remains,” she added. “I don’t know how the general public will respond to it.”

In a statement on Tuesday, Strickland said the goal of the group would be to have one national self-driving car policy, rather than deal with regulations state by state.

“Self-driving vehicle technology will make America’s roadways safer and less congested,” Strickland said in a statement. “The best path for this innovation is to have one clear set of federal standards, and the Coalition will work with policymakers to find the right solutions that will facilitate the deployment of self-driving vehicles.”