If there is rain and/or your payload is heavy, that increases your braking distance, so accordingly detection should either work further ahead or your speed would have to be reduced to allow for safe braking.
> is the object moving toward me
This is a very valid point. If not all vehicles are autonomous, even on a well-protected highway it is possible to have a cascading accident caused by human mistake. This would even be an issue if all vehicles are autonomous, since some could be hijacked by owners.
In my view this type of “dumb” object detection for emergency braking purposes should work together with contextually aware AI-based overall autonomy, not instead of it. Upthread I wrote “an autopilot should not be entrusted to decide further”, which was perhaps ambiguous—meant that in context of an anomaly ahead.
My point is if the best we can do is a LIDAR detection auto-stop then that's not full autonomy, and I question how close we'll actually get to contextually aware autonomy.
> To your point about rail network, there are autonomous rail lines—I’ve used the new light rail system in Macau, and trains are entirely driverless.
That is actually really cool to hear. I know I come across as a Luddite by having a pessimistic view on car autonomy, but I will be happy if we can crack it.