Systems and methods for imminent collision avoidance

Systems and methods for operating a vehicle are disclosed. The methods comprise: generating, by a computing device, a vehicle trajectory for the vehicle while the vehicle is in motion; detecting an object within a given distance from the vehicle; generating at least one possible object trajectory for the object which was detected; performing a collision check to determine whether a collision between the vehicle and the object can be avoided based on the vehicle trajectory and the at least one possible object trajectory; performing a plausibility check to determine whether the collision is plausible based on content of a map, when a determination is made in the collision check that a collision between the vehicle and the object cannot be avoided; and performing operations to selectively cause the vehicle to perform an emergency maneuver based on results of the plausibility check.