To Get Ready for Robot Driving, Some Want to Reprogram Pedestrians

Because the train is the rail's single legal user, that's why it can afford to run at signalling-controlled speed, not by vision-limited one.

So, by his own analogy, he would like to own the street now because his SDV is the most expensive piece of traffic, does he? Next step from "it's your damn fault for being in the way" is adding the cowcatcher, then: "You on foot, you on the bike, you in the less-protected car, you have all violated the SDV's expectations, off with your plebeian heads!" That's a very different (indeed achievable, and most importantly cheaper for Ng and friends) dog-eat-dog vision from the usual technicolor utopia marketing of "SDVs will predict you and drive far more safely."

Historically, such forays into adversarial driving have been met with caltrops, or in general, an arms race.