More generally, I think the car should try to stay on the road and it its lane whenever possible, and only leave that space when it's absolutely safe to do so. People on the street have chosen to interact with cars, people on the sidewalk haven't. And the best way to avoid an accident is usually to brake, and not to swerve into someone else or into a wall.
Even one kid runs out into the street. Hit the kid straight ahead or risk the occupant(s) by crashing the car or turning the car into an unknown area?
Car is about to be struck by a red light/stop light runner from the left. Swerve off the road to prevent it (into an area of "unknown contents, possibly including pedestrians") or just take the hit without evasive maneuvering?
There were multiple scenarios researched via MTurk in the story, with variable numbers of pedestrians.
As I mentioned in my previous post, how exactly is that going to kill the driver at 30mph? There isn't going to be a continuous brick wall at the side of the road, otherwise where the heck did the kids come from?!
I think the article is a little overhyped. Certainly there are cases where the car will need to take evasive action, but it's unlikely it will have to decide who to kill.
