[dchichkov]

The right question to ask is how many rear-end collisions does it produce and how many accidents it prevents.

If it infrequently phantom brakes (especially when there is no vehicle behind - an AV can sense that), that doesn't cause any collisions, this might be optimal behavior, given the current level of technology.

[throwaway894345]

Agreed. People seem to think that anything that allows for any accident at all (irrespective of frequency or severity) is better than the status quo of 40k fatalities per year, which is pretty wild considering how otherwise rational this forum tends to be.