Not always. I've been in a scenario where I swerved into an open breakdown lane because someone swerved into my lane at high speed to avoid running into the car in front (because they had slammed on their brakes after being inattentive). Lots of swerving high-speed vehicles but no one ended up colliding.

But I agree as a general rule. A lot of this trolley problem stuff is way overblown. Far and away the best action in the vast majority of cases is going to be to slam on the brakes. Even if someone or something still collides, the energy is going to be reduced and therefore the consequences of the collision.

I certainly don't want my car flying off the pavement to avoid hitting something on the road without a really good model of why that's a safer approach for me.