Perhaps this quick settlement is driven (sic) by the possibility that self-driving cars don't work, and neither party wants that situation to be exposed in open court?
I do. I think it's only possible with instrumented, self-driving only, roads.
I think it's impossible for general purpose roads. Not without true AI.
ars answered perfectly for me, but indeed I believe it is not going to work. Impossible? Well that depends -- for some constrained version of the problem (no human drivers, special lanes/roads for SDVs) perhaps. In the distant future when strong AI has been built, well sure then it's easy.