Quote:
We can't have cars swerving off the road because someone didn't look before crossing the street.
Exactly. If you allow cars to drive in such a way that they can be easily coaxed into ramming themselves into trees and such then you create a situation too dangerous to the passengers. With a human driver we assume they can tell the difference between a child running in front of the car and a tumbleweed. Autonomous vehicles have to make the same determinations with an accuracy better than humans. This is where pattern recognition and AI become part of the solution. But if you allow a devious person to easily cause the vehicle to crash then this will certainly happen, so the vehicle has to follow rules that allow it to stay safe even in the event of unsafe (illegal) behavior of someone near it. In the OP's scenario this probably means the kids get run over. If you chose the have the car run off the cliff, then people may chose not to adopt autonomous cars, which could lead to thousands or millions of more deaths that could have been prevented...there are always big picture affects that have to be considered.
This is really the famous Trolley Dilemma.