[happytoexplain]

"Works for me" is a bizarre defense of self-driving cars. Regardless, it's not only journalists, though I know they are a favorite punching bags. Lots of normal people are justifiably angry and/or scared of autonomous vehicles.

Statistics is just one piece of the picture, and when statistics can support something in a divided topic, proponents of that thing tend to irrationally tunnel-vision the statistics angle. Bad software is already an unending nightmare that makes life difficult and engenders a lot of bitterness. We see companies prioritize the wrong things all the time. If a car killed my loved one because of software and lobbying and the blind supporters of these companies, I would be insane with fury directed at those responsible, just as I would be with a distracted driver if they caused the accident, if not more so.

People care a lot about agency, and the reason for a person's death matters a lot. To take an extreme example, if autonomous cars result in much fewer road deaths, but the deaths they do cause are due to a robot arm coming out of the dashboard and stabbing the driver to death, people aren't going to accept that, and it would be ridiculous to stubbornly point at the statistics and just insist that humans must not have human feelings.