Swerving seems like it will almost be more dangerous than slamming on the brakes. Never swerve is probably a better heuristic for when to swerve than the one that most human drivers are employing.
Accidents happen, just because you find yourself in a situation that requires you to swerve does not mean you were driving unsafe. Why does swerving imply the driver is unsafe? Surely you can imagine a safe driver having to swerve in some situations, right?
Swerving is a better way to avoid a collision, but braking would have at least reduced the severity.
Of course, this all presumes you can quickly analyze the situation and conclude that it is safe to swerve (which, in theory, the computer can do far faster than a human can).
Swerving is almost always the wrong thing to do from a safety perspective. This situation is identical to a deer in the road at night, a situation in which most traffic safety experts advise hitting the horn and brakes, but not swerving (note that human drivers hit over a million deer in the US every year, despite supposedly being alert and able to see better than cameras at night). You don't have time for a mirror check to see if there's a car next to you, the shoulder might not be safe, and swerving at speed is an excellent way to lose control of your vehicle entirely. There's also a bike perpendicular to the lane, so you would have to swerve way more than just enough to get around a person.
That's true, but if swerving means sideswiping the car that is next to you then it's going to be more logical to slam o the brakes. It depends on the density and speed of traffic. My view is a bit biased as I live near a busy intersection and so I'm first on the scene for 3-4 collisions a year.
Swerving is good way to get yourself killed. If you find yourself swerving to the center of the road without making sure there is no traffic trying to overtake at the moment, then you have to figure out what to do to avoid that.
Relying on each an every driver to leave enough space just in case you need to swerve is a losing proposition.
It is totally normal to just go behind one car without constantly overtaking or being overtaken. It is even actually safer then being constantly in and out of lanes.
I did not say the swerve was safe, I said that a even safe driver (driver who drives defensively) driver might have to swerve. Any unplanned reactionary movement of the steering is of course not safe. Seems like you misread what I typed, or maybe you're a natural gaslighter?
Nothing scary happens in the next 60 seconds. The car would obviously not go into the opposite lane if there was traffic, and given a few more seconds it would return to the right shoulder. The driver is jumpy and taking over before it has time to correct anything.
When my wife learned to drive in Norway she was instructed never to swerve to avoid a collision regardless of whether it was an elk, a dog or a human being in front of the car, just to stamp hard on the brake.
The rationale being that swerving most likely puts more people at risk more of the time. Especially true here where leaving the road often means either colliding with the granite cliff wall or ending up in the fjord or lake.
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