When should a self-driving wheelchair start moving again?

Letting go of a joystick could mean ‘you drive now.’ It could also mean ‘I need a moment.’ I'd want a self-driving wheelchair to make that choice unmistakable. The ChairNav research preprint describes a powered wheelchair that learns sidewalk navigation from driving demonstrations and rider corrections. Appendix A says the rider takes control by moving the joystick, and control returns to the model as soon as the spring-loaded stick returns to centre. That's a specific handback rule, not evidence that anyone was surprised or hurt. Imagine correcting the chair away from a planter, then wanting to stay still while talking to a friend. I'd want the rider to be able to choose ‘stay stopped’ without having to keep applying a correction. A brief steering adjustment and a pause in the outing shouldn't have to mean the same thing. The exact control needs to work for the person using it; another small button isn't automatically an accessible answer. The paper's real-world evaluation involved one user, so it doesn't establish how different riders would want this handback to work. I'd ask riders to try both a quick correction and a deliberate pause in a supervised study, then describe whether the chair resumed when they intended. That's a study question, not a test I've run. Would you want driving assistance to resume automatically after a correction, or wait for a separate go-ahead?