> We've already had fatal self driving crashes while the self driving system was in operation.

There is no true (level 5) self-driving system yet, only driver-assist where the system may hand back control at any moment. It's only true self-driving when there's no human in the car.

> Imagine what a change it was going from horses to cars operating on internal combustion engines and relying on brakes to stop these vehicles going far faster than any horse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_flag_traffic_laws - knee-jerk legislative response driven by a combination of fear and lobbying is always a risk.