The real question is how did they get it to a collission situation in the first place.
Even assuming their evasive action was perfect, if instead of 2 s.d. cars was 1 normal car on the other side or some other obstacle (a building etc), getting on a collision course wouldn't be that safe...
EDIT: downvote? If someone disagress can also state why. Or am I shuttering the perfect technology dream?
A self-driving Lexus operated by Google apparently cut off a self-driving Audi run by Delphi Automotive as it was trying to change lanes, causing it to take “appropriate action” to avoid a collision, said a Delphi executive.
John Absmeier, who was travelling in his company’s car at the time, said the Audi was forced to abort its lane change in the incident, which happened earlier this week.
I'm glad it was a robot, and not me driving that car. Not sure if I would have been able to change lanes that fast without causing an accident.
That's the issue: one of the robots forced another car to react quickly to avoid an accident. Had this been a human, it could have ended very differently.
It wasn’t a 'near miss' as described in the Reuters story."
Instead, she explained how this was a normal scenario, and the Delphi car performed admirably.
"Our car did exactly what it was supposed to," she wrote. "Our car saw the Google car move into the same lane as our car was planning to move into, but upon detecting that the lane was no longer open it decided to terminate the move and wait until it was clear again."
They realised a collision was imminent and took evasive action? Sounds like they got it right to me.