I understand that 28L was closed for the night and the lights were shut off, so the pilot probably thought that 28R was 28L and that the taxiway was 28R. But an instrument landing would have immediately corrected the problem because the instruments would have lined him up correctly with the runway. So is there any reason why pilots would do an visual landing instead of an instrument landing these days? Why wouldn't the FAA mandate that instead of leaving it to chance at the pilots judgement like this? There were multiple widebody planes on the taxiway - it would have been a terrible disaster if he would not have been able to go around in time.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/11/us-investigates-air-canada-near-miss-san-francisco