If a man jumps out in front of my car in traffic and points a pistol at me after I stop. I am going around or thru him and there is no other option. Anyone else trying to stop me even without visible weapons is going to get evasive maneuvers to protect myself because I am not dealing with that bullshit. That includes weaving far outside my travel lane or going over a sidewalk. That is self defense and a split second decision. Waymo prioritizes all outside obstacle avoidance which means it doesn’t even want to leave it’s set travel lane, which makes them trivial to stop like this with no recourse.

The point I am making is that self driving has a really hard time interpreting traffic or passenger emergency edge cases like this. A remote operator could make the decision to drive over curbs and other lanes, if free, to save the passenger, and realistically should avoid hitting pedestrians too… but in the case of an armed attacker - well, yknow. Like force for like force. And the medical point still stands. A panic button is needed.