I'm fixated on the press and waymo because this is an ongoing cycle of news: person has experience with waymo, puts it on social media, press covers it "oh look self driving cars can't work".

Now, on to the part where you mention a person could be a deterrent: if that's the case, society has far more problems than just a single self-driving car. In particular, doesn't that seem to imply that women in cars would need some sort of protector? I'm not going too deeply into the argument.

The reason the waymo didn't drive forward is that Google has programmed their cars to be exceptionally cautious- perhaps overly so- to stave off the huge negative press cycle that will happen when they hit or kill somebody in a dramatic way. Same for the bus lane- nobody at Waymo ever thought "Oh, we should violate some driving regulations to save a person from being harassed by assholes". That, like the trolley problem, is literally not something they are concerned with. Because self-driving cars aren't general intelligences designed to solve problems outside the "driving a person to a destination" problem.