On Friday, July 15, 2016 at 2:33:36 PM UTC-5, palsing wrote:
On Friday, July 15, 2016 at 12:17:23 PM UTC-7, wrote:
On Friday, July 15, 2016 at 2:54:28 PM UTC-4, palsing wrote:

Snell is assuming that the motorcycle riders themselves will not take any evasive action!

They might be standing still at a light.

'Might be'? so much for your 'exact' scenario. You are losing traction fast here.

A motorcycle is much more maneuverable than almost any car, and skilled riders are much more aware of their surroundings than are auto drivers.

Not always.

Yes, pretty much always.

In any case, it is wrong to blame either a living driver or an autonomously driven vehicle which happens to collide with a person who darts into the road unexpectedly.

The pedestrian would be causing the situation, but why should someone who did not cause the situation (the helmeted cyclist) be made to suffer as a result?

Why indeed? So, here you are basically saying that it is the pedestrian who should suffer. Why didn't you just come out and say this at the beginning? Of course, you were careful to specify that this pedestrian was a child, which somehow should change the ethics of the whole situation, implying that anyone who would choose to hit the kid would now be a child killer, you sick S.O.B.

A human will probably hit the brakes. In some situations the automated car will swerve. In some situations the human will swerve.

'Some situations'? More clear evidence that your so-called 'exactly enough information has been presented' scenario is completely full of holes.

What's your next lame zig-zag going to be?

I recall many years ago my 90+yr old Ukranian neighbor lady in Garfield Heights, Ohio. Grew flowers and vegetables in a small garden in her front yard.. She was very spry, was out there every day weeding and fussing, often times singing to herself, joyful at life. Once a week she would cross the local main drag to go to the supermarket on the other side of the road. 4 lanes, marked 30mph with painted crosswalks. Unfortunately many drivers ignored the speed limit. One day unfortunately she didn't move fast enough, the driver who hit her was going close to 60mph based on skid marks and how far her body was thrown. Really sad. I wonder if a driverless car would have been going that fast. Most probably they adhere to the speed limit, so no fun for some people.

What's also sad is that a perfectly good thread is ruined again by people bickering about something totally disconnected from the original post. Hijacked and polluted by the same actors. Every thread, sigh..