If something can enter the road and you can&#x27;t stop in time then you have already failed.  Driver-less cars should never drive at a speed where they can&#x27;t stop in time.<p>In terms of edge cases. Lidar gives a 3d image so a floating balloon is going to show up like a bird and not something to be dodged.  Same is true of balls and other small fast moving objects, they are not going to ping as kids.  An object on the road is going be detected in plenty of time to slow down and stop or just avoid it without hitting any thing.  Or, more likely just driven over the wheels are the only contact point and clearance is high enough for many objects in the roadway.<p>Driver-less cars have vastly shorter stopping distances at all speeds so they can be safe at speeds humans can&#x27;t.  They also rarely need to hard break because they can start slowing down sooner.  Dodging might be considered if traction is good and there is open space to move to.<p>PS: If human drivers where not killing 20,000 Americans a year then we might debate perfection.  Until then, self driving cars that kill 1,000 people per month would be a massive improvement end of story.<p>PPS: Remember google&#x27;s self driving car from last month is worse than whatever they end up putting into production.  The first production cars are also going to be worse than whatever most people end up using.