Question about How do Self-Driving Cars Know What to Do? activity

[Ameesh123]

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What decision should a self driving car take if suddenly an animal comes in between the road





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The activity can be viewed at: How do Self-Driving Cars Know What to Do?

[calixte]

Hello!

This is a great question.
Currently, if a pet dog (for example) ran out in front of a Waymo (or any current self driving cars) the car would stop in it's tracks even if it is at risk of being hit by another car. The reason for this is that most people would rather save the life of an animal for instead of saving money.

On the other side of this, the rules of the road do say that if another car hit's the back of your car they are at fault. Drivers on the road need to always have full control over their speed at all times.

Now if a human were to be hurt because of the car crash that becomes very complicated, but overall the car would try it's best to stop if an animal were to suddenly come into the road.