It is a stupid question, but not even because people, even children, should be responsible of their acts, but because a driver should expect such occurences. T

It is a stupid question, but not even because people, even children, should be responsible of their acts, but because a driver should expect such occurences. This is the reason why speed limits are very low in residential and school areas: because it is expected that there are people on the side walks that _could_ possibly change direction, move on the road, and even perhaps stop (fall) there. Similarly, when driving in the mountains or in the Arizona desert, you might go fast when there are nobody around, but if you see somebody walking on the side, you must take into account his possible changes of dirrection, and therefore slow down. Around highways, there are often fences to prevent people to come close, so that cars may go fast. Also, you don't go as fast when there is fog than when the sky is clear: you have to expect more unknowns when there is fog than when it's clear. Now, I'm not saying that human drivers apply speed limits (either legal or moral (ie. "bayesian")) often or at all, but they should. I'm saying that a robotic car will have much less difficulties in controlling scientifically its speed, taking into account the presence of people, animals and other mobile objects surrounding it, their velocities and their possible direction changes. Therefore a "tunnel" situation as described in that articule won't occur (unless there's a bug in the software).