Adam Millard-Ball, an assistant professor in the Environmental Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, argues that the increased adoption of autonomous vehicles may make them less desirable in urban environments than human-driven cars.
The reason is that pedestrians know their fellow humans may run them over. So they act accordingly – as if their lives depended on not wading heedlessly into onrushing traffic. They also know that automated vehicles will defer to them, or they will discover as much when they interact with them.
Millard-Ball contends that pedestrians and drivers are engaged in a game of chicken, in which one party eventually decides to yield to the other based on the psychological perception of risk.
Automated cars, however, are programmed to be perceptive, predictable and law abiding. So pedestrians will be able to take advantage of that tendency toward deference. If they do so, it could make traveling in a self-driving car exceedingly slow.
"Secure in the knowledge that a car will yield, pedestrians can cross with impunity
