Originally Posted by
genec
The car is full of all sorts of protection devices... from crumple zones to seatbelts to airbags... thus the likelihood that someone in the cars will be "possibly killed" is less than the unprotected cyclist who will be "probably killed." Thus the solution is that the car should remain in the lane and protect the more vulnerable cyclist.
Fully dependent on the exact situation. Head on, both cars doing 60MPH? That "possibly" moves into "almost definitely at least one death" to me, even with modern safety equipment. 20MPH? Scenario changes significantly, as it does if a sideswipe is a realistic option, as it does if the equation is a dually 3500 truck v a 30 year old Fiesta.
As to my actual results:
Saving more lives: Matters a lot
Protecting passengers: Matters a lot
Upholding the law: Doesn't matter as much, closer to neutral
Avoiding Intervention: Matters a lot
Gender Preference: Solidly Male
Species: Humans, exclusively
Age preference: Towards young
Fitness preference: Neutral
Social preference: Neutral
Perhaps I'm too closely involved, as my company does various detection systems that I've gotten to play with, but some key notes. Computers don't determine fat, skinny, rich, robbers, pregnant, or anything else, and make determinations based off of that. Computers won't make a determination if it is a jaywalker or someone crossing legally, just like it is not legal to run over jaywalkers now.
My preference, as such came down to two criteria: when loss of life was the same, keeping the vehicle where it was supposed to be, in lane. This overly simplistic scenario does not consider any other traffic, but that becomes a huge factor when operating in a mixed vehicle environment with no ad-hoc communication about intent. Secondly, if swerving resulted in less or no human life loss, it was more preferable, as far as the limited scenario was concerned.
And finally, I agree with whomever said it above: such moral dilemmas are pointless if the car isn't preparing to stop at a moment's notice WHEN APPROACHING AN INTERSECTION.