I perpetually feel bad for my negative outlook on self driving cars, because they're so cool, but I really don't see this as a benefit. I personally am not a very big fan of the idea of commodity priority transit. To me this doesn't promote a healthy inequality in society, where each person pays away their own annoyances; instead, it promotes a force that increases inequality.
Here's my example. High priority can't include everyone if you're selling it, so it can't be an accessible price -- if it were, people would pay to be equal -- it's just pay to play. So let's say you charge $10 per day to allow a car full speed access to the roads and most people yield, because this is the threshold that you've found people will pay and actually get there before others. Let's say for your average commuter this package might decrease their commute by 30 minutes. If you are making $20/hour, you'd break even if you spent your saved time working. However, if you valued that time because you could spend it with your family or whatever, you're now only clocking in 7.5 hours a day rather than 8. While spending time with your family may make you happier, it does nothing to help you get out of poverty. You could perhaps study, but if school costs money too, you'd be cutting farther into a budgeted money. Really the only option is to not pay it or pay it and be happy being poor with loved ones.
On the flip side, you have somebody who makes $400 an hour. This is a super easy decision. They pay the money, get to work faster and spend 5 minutes longer at work and still save 25 minutes without actually paying. Alternatively, they could use the time to simply work longer and make $390 more per day. The could use the efficient means of travel to do more business in person rather than over phone or email, who knows what connections they might make or what ladders they could climb. It's all potential they can use.
This example is a bit contrived, but the point I'm making is that you're selling a commodity that makes the rich richer, but won't make the poor richer. This already happens with air travel, vehicle travel and computers, but we're looking to make it worse. I don't think we should punish the rich. I think we should stop making slavery the default and letting the rich buy their way out. Let the public transit have higher priority, let the dying have priority, but fuck letting the rich have priority. They already have priority.
Don't even get me started on the terrible AI these machines have. An asshole driver will eat right through the protective benevolence of these cars. There will always be asshole drivers as long as being an asshole gets you there faster. Benevolence is never the best game strategy and these cars need to give a tit for tat.