If someone drives around with loose crap in the back of their truck that flies out, the truck driver is at fault not the self driving car. This is a danger we already have on the road.
Humans make the wrong call on this sort of thing all the time. They also make stupid passes, yield the right of way at the wrong time, drive the wrong way down one way streets, cut each other off, fall asleep at the wheel, drive drunk, drive without their glasses on, get road rage, etc etc etc.
There is this sort of one-way lens when it comes to self driving cars. People want to throw up red flags about all things they might do wrong while ignoring the millions of stupid things that humans do to kill each other with cars every single day.
I don't think it's super relevant who is at fault, I care what the consequences are.
"It's ok if I get into an accident - it will be the other guy's fault" is only the right reasoning if you're talking on the individual level about about monetary costs of an accident only. If you're talking about injury, or if you're talking about the cost to society as a whole, they are bad consequences regardless of whose fault the accident is.
I think the actual answer is that self-driving cars will end up doing a good enough (i.e. at least human-level but not perfect) job of not wildly swerving or braking to avoid harmless objects like floating plastic bags that this won't be a concern.
> I don't think it's super relevant who is at fault, I care what the consequences are.
> "It's ok if I get into an accident - it will be the other guy's fault"
Exactly. Most accidents take two people to happen, one who makes a mistake and at least one more who could have prevented the accident as well. For example, when right of way is ignored by someone in a left yield right situation, no accident happens if the one with right of way brakes in time. Or, if someone fails to merge in time and runs out of road, someone else can prevent an accident by braking a little.
Right, except no one is claiming humans are perfect drivers but I have heard self driving car evangelists say countless times that self driving cars are going to bring an end to traffic deaths.
Humans make the wrong call on this sort of thing all the time. They also make stupid passes, yield the right of way at the wrong time, drive the wrong way down one way streets, cut each other off, fall asleep at the wheel, drive drunk, drive without their glasses on, get road rage, etc etc etc.
There is this sort of one-way lens when it comes to self driving cars. People want to throw up red flags about all things they might do wrong while ignoring the millions of stupid things that humans do to kill each other with cars every single day.