HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED...

As we approach an era of self-driving cars, engineers will have to program computers to make split-second decisions, including choices that have a moral element, such as deciding whether to hit a wall or a pedestrian.

Psychologists have tried to get a sense of the public’s moral preferences in such cases, through an online survey in which 40 million people in 223 countries answered a version of the famous problem: would you divert a tram to kill one person, or leave it alone to kill four? In France and Latin America, there was a preference for saving women over men, and in some countries there was a preference for saving law-abiding pedestrians over jaywalkers.

And how about overweight people – they were 20% more likely to be chosen to die than those of a healthy weight, and the homeless were 40% ‘more expendable’ than executives.

Cars may only rarely have to make life-or-death decisions – but they’ll often have to decide about risk. For instance, in lines of heavy traffic, should they edge closer to the bicycle on their left or the truck on their right?

Could be dangerous for cyclists.