Except us humans drive in the middle of the street in residential areas often below the posted speed limit just for this reason. And if we live on this street, we can better anticipate the conditions.

While I am sceptical about the hype about autonomous vehicles I fully expect them to be equally good at that long before they go mainstream.

Why?

- They aren't as easily distracted as humans,

- you can program them to stick to the rules even if slowing down results in problems for the passengers

- you can program them to care about any neighborhood, not just the ones we live in