Over time, (one week, one month, one year...) self driving cars will reduce road fatalities significantly.
It’s difficult to believe that autonomous vehicles will function well at night in a heavy snowstorm.
Perhaps, but once self-driving cars dominate traffic, the screw-ups that do occur will be monumental.
I think one year is probably optimistic. But, given the statistics on auto accident deaths and injuries, simply going on anecdotal data such as the unfortunate woman killed as described in the story is entirely misleading.Its clear that airline travel has gotten exponentially safer in the past couple of decades, and something must be done to get on the same sort of track wrt auto safety. And self-driving autos are what is on offer to try to do that.
IMHO the question should not be, is self-driving auto tech mature enough to significantly reduce casualties in one year? The real question is, is self-driving auto tech mature enough that, if adopted now, it will significantly reduce casualties over the next five years? Because we know there will be a learning curve after adoption of the tech.
There are bound to be different people killed by self-driving tech as by (all-too) human drivers. And its awful for the guy whos killed by the adoption of the new tech. But the opportunity is also huge. And serious.