China’s top court issued a “guiding case” stating that drivers remain responsible for road safety even when assisted-driving functions are activated.

The guiding-case format creates a nationwide reference that can be used by lower courts, tightening legal exposure for drivers who treat Level 2/assisted systems as autonomous. Automakers and ADAS vendors operating in China face higher pressure to adjust driver-monitoring, warnings, and marketing claims to avoid enabling “hands-off/eyes-off” use that could trigger liability and enforcement. Fleet operators and insurers should assume incident investigations will default to driver fault unless the system is clearly not in assisted mode, raising the value of in-vehicle logs and compliance controls.