The problem is that we might not ever get to monotonous improvement. We can probably easily get to a state where self-driving would decrease the number of traffic injuries and fatalities in total compared to human drivers.
But machines make different mistakes, mistakes that humans would never do, and that's psychologically not acceptable to most people. All the actual accidents will be "freak" accidents that a human could never cause, and that scares people a lot more than "human" accidents like a drunk driver running someone over at a pedestrian crossing.
Yes, you got it perfectly. That's exactly my fear. And Tesla isn't helping with their marketing because they suggest we are further than we really are.
If I get killed by a drunk driver, my wife will at least have someone to rage at.
If I get killed because my car randomly decides to drive itself into a high up truck and I basically died because of stupid technology. I would hope that it doesn't end up killing my wife too out of rage that she's going up against a major corporation now.
Strange, because there are a LARGE number of driving fatalities caused by this exact behavior every year. The common explanations are: driver dozing or falling asleep, unexpected curve with poor visibility, driver mistaking the shoulder for another lane, and driver striking median to exit ramp by misjudging a lane change. Humans do all of these things, on a daily basis. So by human standards, accelerating and crashing into a barrier is quite commonplace.
But machines make different mistakes, mistakes that humans would never do, and that's psychologically not acceptable to most people. All the actual accidents will be "freak" accidents that a human could never cause, and that scares people a lot more than "human" accidents like a drunk driver running someone over at a pedestrian crossing.