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Google’s self-driving cars are making headlines as innocent victims in rear-end collisions. But this past week, Google revealed that one of these collisions had injured its employees inside the vehicle, causing minor whiplash. It could have been much worse. As often as rear-end crashes generally occur, why can’t robot cars just drive out of the way when they sense an incoming collision?

Well, they can, but there are unusual ethical and legal issues to think through first.

The technology exists for robot cars to detect impending collisions—whether with another vehicle, pedestrian, bicyclist, or other object—and to swerve out of the way if it can. So far, this feature is used for front collisions. In theory, it could also be used for rear-end collisions. But consider this problem:



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