Re: I knew this was coming...
"Autonomous control systems for road vehicles need to be overseen with the same rigour as those for planes or trains."
No, they don't.
Issues like this need to be subjected to cost/benefit analysis.
Trying to get road transport to airline levels of safety will kill more people than it will save, because of the distortion of resource allocation, and loss of functionality and capability due to cost.
Trying to match airlines 'zero fatalities in a year' record would make ground transportation too expensive to use... with horrifying economic, social, health, safety, and other damage.
Yes, safety too. When fire trucks, ambulances, police cars, as well as vehicles delivering food, medicine, fuel, etc. become too expensive to use, what do you think would happen to the victims of such nonsense?
AVs need to be as safe as human drivers, and preferably safer - which they will become as they evolve. They will not be perfect - even airliners crash, regardless of costs that sometimes stagger the imagination - aircraft parts can be a hundred times the cost of their automotive equivalent or more - and the level of servicing - in some cases every hundred hours of operation, with major rebuilds fairly frequently - but they will be good enough.
Insisting on perfection is just a sneaky way to sabotage the advances AVs represent.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
