[tialaramex]

You're imagining something akin to the autoland disconnect scenario for a jet liner, and you're correct that, in the absence of expert operators who are prepared to take over immediately this is often fatal. Which is why the jet liner has not one but two people specifically standing by to take over and try to land safely without the autoland. [ This is still scary because usually the autoland is trying to put the plane down in very poor visibility, and it is disconnecting because you're below decision height but something so bad went wrong that it's no longer able to land the plane - a human pilot may not be able to make whatever that bad thing was survivable either ]

The auto-land disconnect scenario isn't applicable to cars. It happens because jet liners are _flying_ and suddenly ceasing to fly in a jet liner is both very bad and perhaps unavoidable in the absence of enough information to operate the plane within parameters.

In contrast when a car becomes uncertain about what to do it's not flying so _stopping_ is almost always a good choice. It's not ideal, it may block traffic and be a nuisance, it might even cause a small accident of some sort - but it's very likely to end with everybody walking away, not with a burning wreck and dozens of dead.