The trolley problem is just an extreme example, that people can easily understand and think about. Less extreme versions of it occur all the time. For example

The trolley problem is just an extreme example, that people can easily understand and think about. Less extreme versions of it occur all the time. For example, say you are driving along a road, passing a bicyclist. You'd like to give the cyclist more room, but there's an oncoming car in the lane next to you. How much room do you give? At exactly what threshold do you decide to wait to pass the cyclist? What if the cyclist is a kid? All the time, the driver has to make decisions that trade off the safety of multiple parties, from the car's occupants to other drivers, to bicyclists and pedestrians. In reality, these will almost always be statistical tradeoffs, and usually comparing very small probabilities of accidents, but they are still real ethical decisions that have to be made.