I didn't mean for the automation to be primary - I meant for it to be a llast-ditch collision avoidance system, like the steering wheel nudge on my car.

Humans should still pilot the ship, but if they are going to let a collision happen, then the ship should try to avoid it even without human intervention (unless they press the "I know what I'm doing and want to do it anyway" button after the ship sounds the alarm saying it's taking evasive action)

So the system doesn't have to handle all of the edge cases, just the "We're on a collision course with that ship ahead" case.