On the flip side, very few people die while mowing the lawn or unloading the dishwasher. If you mow the lawn poorly, you'll be fine. If you unload the dishwasher while drunk, there's no risk of killing a family.
I know enough people that drive terribly to see the obvious benefits to autonomous driving. It doesn't need to be perfect to have a net-positive effect on road safety, it just needs to be better than a human on average. And based on the evidence, it seems they're doing a damn good job of achieving that goal.
I agree, but wanted to point out that you are making the implicit assumption that all drivers are going to be replaced by autonomous vehicles. Otherwise comparing to the average driver may be biased as there most likely are correlations in some way between driver safety and likelihood of acquiring autonomous vehicles (desirability / affordability).
It's not making the assumption that all drivers will be replaced. It's making the assumption that the average skill level of the drivers that are replaced will be lower than the skill level of autonomous cars.
I know enough people that drive terribly to see the obvious benefits to autonomous driving. It doesn't need to be perfect to have a net-positive effect on road safety, it just needs to be better than a human on average. And based on the evidence, it seems they're doing a damn good job of achieving that goal.