The described problem wasn’t that the car didn’t see the lines, it was the car steering into oncoming traffic when it couldn’t see the lines. Lidar could potentially very well help with that, by giving the car a better model of the surroundings letting it better reconstruct the intended road path even when the lines are faded, and also see oncoming traffic better and avoid it.
Exactly this. Also I wanted to point out, LIDAR absolutely sees the lines on the road. Of course, this is not much use if they’re faded, but LIDAR receives points from the road/ground, and since lane markings are white, they have a much higher reflectivity. So if you look at a LiDAR pointcloud, the lane markings have a higher point concentration and you can definitely see them.
Source: I work in this sector.
