It seems like an airliner flying at altitude has quite large safety margins compared to a car on a highway.
Pilots typically have more time to react, though (astronauts lie even further away along this axis; in cases where astronauts can take action to save their lives, they typically have even more time, but also, in many cases, there's no action that will save them)
As to the "take control at a moments notice": that's where the problem lies.
The arguments in "Ironies of Automation" (https://www.ise.ncsu.edu/nsf_itr/794B/papers/Bainbridge_1983...) such as "By taking away the easy parts of his task, automation can make the difficult parts of the human operator's task more difficult" haven't lost any of their power in the 30+ years since it was published.
Because of that, I doubt the typical driver will be able to handle emergency situations, as it will require frequent training.
There is just no excuse for using that particular term for this particular technology.
How are the consequences much more dramatic while flying? I can think of plenty of scenarios while driving where you go from perfect autopilot conditions with no visible risks to death of passengers or pedestrians in <5 seconds.