Persuit of perfection vs. incremental improvement
The hysteria in the media over this death is unfortunately (IMHO) typical of the reaction to most "changes" in the world of technology. However bad/dangerous/unreliable any current system (normally "manual" in some way) might be, critics of any new technological replacement show "magical thinking" and expect it to be perfect, rather than merely being significantly better than its predecessor, which should be good enough for most cases.
If driver assistance (whatever the name) can reliably be shown to reduce accidents (making sure that we're comparing like with like - e.g. motorway with motorway rather than motorway with assist vs. country roads without), should we really be looking for a scapegoat when it turns out not to be 100% perfect? Of course - we must make sure that we learn from every mistake, but don't let lawyers cause the baby to be thrown out with the bath water.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
