Lol, i think you're mistaking my (attempted) logical thinking towards some type of agenda towards banning humans driving cars. You seem far more agenda driven, heh.
Just because i think we are extremely unqualified for driving, does not mean i want to ban the act. It be extremely improbable to achieve, with all the costs of upgrading the entire infrastructure alone making your defense of this almost seem like a half hearted joke. Moreover, even if in some magic realm where we can make all cars into self driving cars to abolish human driving, i'm just simply not in favor of removing human rights.
Yes, i would want to make it difficult for you to drive, but for your own (and mine!) safety. Our safety standards for driving tests are incredibly, and i mean incredibly, laughable. How often we enforce rules and laws for driving are also laughable. Almost no one even follows some of the most basic rules, like speed limits, and the more extreme people often break sobriety laws.
Self driving cars would give us a platform to A: Raise the bar for who can drive, and what sort of training you need. and B: Be more willing to ban someone from driving if they put others at risk, through speed, drugs, alcohol, or whatever.
We have a hard time banning drivers these days because it very negatively impacts your life if you cannot drive. In a world with self driving cars though, you can still have a first class life. Driving is now something of leisure.
Anyway, nice try at putting words in my mouth - next time make them a little less tinfoil though, please.
I could foresee this happening in one or two Western European countries, though I would expect Germany and Central Europe to hold out (the German electorate resists regulation that impedes the speed and power of their automobiles).
An aside: how would a car being self-driving affect the owner's ability to direct it wherever he or she pleases?
Fortunately, as you say, there are still a majority of sane people who vote in the USA. Will that still be true a generation later?
I would predict electric cars before self-driving cars, so they won't have that excuse at least.
I very much believe in gradual improvements and that is what many large car manufacturers are doing. I can easily imagine not needing to control my car on a highway, in a city, or when parking it, but I expect the manual controls will stay there for a very very long time.