I work with programs approaching L3+ from L2, with the requirement that the system works for 99% of roads (not tesla before people start fixating on that).

We find that the cases where lidar really helps are in gathering training data, parking, and if focused enough some long distance precision.

None of these have been instrumental in a final product; personally I suspect that many of the cars including lidar use it for data collection and edge cases more than as part of the driving perception model.

Accidents are not normal driving situations but edge cases.

Waymo is the best current autonomous driving system and Waymo uses LIDAR. This is because LIDAR is an incredibly effective sensor for accurate range data. Vision and Radar range data is much less accurate and reliable.

Waymo used LIDAR in the realtime control loop. It combines LiDAR, camera, and radar data in real time to build a 3D representation of the environment, which is constantly updated.

I fundamentally don't trust any level 4 system that doesn't use LIDAR