[1stop]

But it's still simple math. More weight, be more aggressive with brakes.

If human truck drivers can do it, then a computer truck with a 360 model of the environment around it can do it more efficiently right.

I don't understand the problem here really. Computers are way better at logical computation than humans and that's all we require here.

[gambiting]

Yes, but there are more problems to consider here. With some types of cargo, applying maximum brakes can actually damage it(think livestock for example). You also don't want the truck to be going into panic mode and applying maximum brakes for a plastic bag or a small animal. I'm afraid that our current technology can at best tell that there is something there, but it won't be able to tell what - humans at the moment are much better at visual recognition. It's just a concern at the moment, but I think it's an important one because it can lead to some serious accidents when the technology launches.

[CodeCube]

have you not been following the developments of self driving cars? Like the story of how google cars had problems gauging the intent of bike riders that were themselves stopped to let the car pass ... it looked like they were about to take off, so the car was too conservative and didn't move until the bike changed what they were doing. And then, once that condition was experienced and identified, it was fixed for all google cars in the entire fleet.

I'm pretty sure the car will be able to identify and plastic bag ... not to mention a simple cargo manifest that would apply parameters about how the cargo is to be dealt with.