[walterbell]

Or maybe we could save more lives by using technology to augment human drivers?

We don't actually know that self-driving cars are possible in unrestricted environments. The industry is asking for highly invasive surveillance but has no liability for failure to deliver. What happens if "more data" turns out to be insufficient? Will the next request be "restrict the environmental context" or "pass new laws to change human behavior"? Where does it end? Other industries have to deliver results before changing the market. Uber et al promised the moon to their investors, then ignored local laws, then promise to save lives, then ignore privacy concerns, then ..?