- philosophical dilemma
- physics-constrained reaction times
- actions that violate the rules of the system
Solutions:
- protected car lanes
- protected bike lanes
- protected pedestrian lanes
Reasons why these solutions are not put in place:
- cost
Until humans determine that the cost of human life is higher than the cost of upgrading infrastructure, we should accept human death as a regular part of autonomous driving, just the same as we do for non-autonomous driving. 37k dead people every year in the US due to human drivers.
Top reasons for auto accidents today include inclement weather, reckless driving, speeding, driving under the influence, and distracted driving. In theory, most of those could be solved by autonomous driving. But then the list of reasons for accidents would change to whatever new reasons cause autonomous car accidents, such as damaged sensors, programming errors, equipment failure, road hazards, etc.
Even with autonomous cars, we will still need protected lanes, and we will still never implement them, because we don't really care when people we don't know die.
If by "protected passenger lane" you mean putting a Jersey barrier between the sidewalk and the road, no thanks. Maybe I'm a spoiled suburbanite, but I can't help but recall that, scant a century ago, pedestrians could walk along or on the streets wherever they pleased.
In order to allow transportation to co-exist with pedestrians without collisions, you need some kind of separation between the two. With subways, the protected lane is literally underground, but it does definitely have a protected lane. If you don't go under ground, you can go above ground, like several subways and metros do around the world.
If you don't do either of these, you have to make concessions on the ground level. My personal preference would be tall fences around the roadway, and pedestrian bridges that go over or under the roadway (but both have problems). Another would be to still have the fences, but automate some sliding barricades that would activate when traffic halted, which is somewhat like how train crossings work. We could also implement hybrid methods, like that at Shibuya crossing, for very congested intersections.
Top reasons for auto accidents today include inclement weather, reckless driving, speeding, driving under the influence, and distracted driving. In theory, most of those could be solved by autonomous driving. But then the list of reasons for accidents would change to whatever new reasons cause autonomous car accidents, such as damaged sensors, programming errors, equipment failure, road hazards, etc.
Even with autonomous cars, we will still need protected lanes, and we will still never implement them, because we don't really care when people we don't know die.