The self driving car dilema

Road traffic is fundamentally a group-process. A typical a human group process. In the end human (non verbal) communication and behaviour are the flexibility layer in the process. When rules or situations are unclear, this human to human process defines the system security. This allows the strange mix of pedestrians, bicycles, car's and lories to share the same space.

For trains and other public transport this is less the case. These are primarily system rules based apparatus. People have to adapt to these rules. And are flexible enough to do so. And because people are aware of this, they do.

Self driving cars never will become humans and thus in the end never will have the flexibility humans have. They in the end will behave more like trains than humans. Other humans will be unclear about the flexibility layer surrounding self-driving-cars. This is a risk area in the trust people will put into self-driving-cars. Driver assistance is obviously something else.

So self-driving public transport can work in a save way because people know in traffic they are dealing with non human system. Self-driving-cars however should have an indicator when in self-driving mode, so other road users are made aware of the inflexibel nature of the vehicle, or they should be prohibited.