From your Freeper handle, I suspect that you are a software engineer. Have you ever written a program that didn’t have some bugs or have you ever met a piece of computer hardware that was not subject to insidious failure?
Would you walk blindfolded across 6 lanes of highway at night knowing that all the cars on the highway were run untirely on some computer algorithms and hardware manufactured by children and prisoners in China?
My son is a computer hardware engineer. His Job is to find bugs in the hardware and test the comparability of the software. He has yet to meet a program that didn’t have potentially fatal bugs.
Yet this same hardware and software are being used to hurtle a 2500 pound piece of steel though a maze of other vehicles, pedestrians, potholes that can swallow small vehicles, and drivers who are drunk
or inattentive. And if you think the government is going to take my right to operate my own car, then they will have to pry the steering wheel from my cold dead hands.
I've been a software engineer for 30 years. During the course of my career I've also been a software tester (which I thoroughly enjoyed). I've also been an IV&V engineer (which is a LOT of fun).
Here's a down&dirty answer which I think covers your questions: Uber should have tested their self-driving vehicle with a better-thought-out Test Engineering Plan, and with crash-test dummies to plow into, instead of having to learn about their failures by killing a human being.