I get the argument, it really is a difficult ethical question. Your argument fundamentally boils down to "the car exists in the world and should move through it causing minimum disturbance to it" and that's a very sensible argument.
But, quite simply, if I'm paying for a car or a ride, the machine serves me. My argument fundamentally boils down to "the car exists to serve it's passengers first and foremost" with the caveat that human lives are more important than animals. It should do everything in it's power to avoid hurting anyone, property be damned. But, when the choice is protect people in general or it's purpose for existing, I disagree with you. I'm always open to changing my mind however, and I don't dismiss your point of view out of hand.
> But, quite simply, if I'm paying for a car or a ride, the machine serves me.
If you're saying that people who can afford to take a car for a particular journey deserve to be protected over the pedestrians who can't in the edge-cases, then, if we average out enough of the details, this implies that richer people's lives are worth (slightly) more than poorer people's lives.
You can draw a lot of conclusions from this logic, though, so I'm not sure how valid it is to just pick one property and generalise from it. (Wealth is applicable, but also able-bodiedness, age, climate consciousness, whether you feel safe walking streets alone at night…) It might be something to think about [edit: removed].
> but it's not something to judge people's ethical positions over.
It is, actually. We don't have to be so so careful not to ever pass judgement.
We are talking about the belief that people paying for a service are entitled to increased safety at the expense of others, who did not pay for it. It's ok to find that wicked and to say so.
Let's not get into morality and stick to ethics. Let's not call something "wicked", no need to charge the discussion. we are trying to come to an answer to this after all.
But I think you're probably right at this point, at least in the specific scenario in the game. I woke up this morning believing the opposite.
I'm actually in an interesting position in this discussion, I've been faced with this decision before in real life, before I ever articulated a position on it. I chose to hit the barrier, and I'm lucky to be alive. That is of course the exact opposite of what my position was this morning when I woke up, but the one I go to bed with tonight if the rest of my day is uneventful.
Moving on to my next example, though, there are people who aren't able to be pedestrians because they have mobility impairments. Are they less worthy of life, just because they're using a vehicle as an accessibility aid?
But, quite simply, if I'm paying for a car or a ride, the machine serves me. My argument fundamentally boils down to "the car exists to serve it's passengers first and foremost" with the caveat that human lives are more important than animals. It should do everything in it's power to avoid hurting anyone, property be damned. But, when the choice is protect people in general or it's purpose for existing, I disagree with you. I'm always open to changing my mind however, and I don't dismiss your point of view out of hand.