I think you are absolutely correct. and i'm disappointed again at the broader HN downvoters who lack any sense of perspective. It's like the hackers all turned into fuzzy-headed luddites here.
As a species, we've long accepted that living around each other poses some hazards and we've made our peace with it.
But to stretch that agreement to a multi-billion dollar corporation that only wants to make money off it? That's too much to ask for.
It is such a trite and overused argument.
Why does it feel so different to you if the accident was caused by negligent human texting, versus an engineer making decisions in code?
If anything that engineer was most likely operating in much better faith than the texting, perhaps drunk human driver.
Can code be "accidental"? Surely not. Someone had an intent to write and implement it. If it fails, its not "accidental"; the system was just programmed that way.
So the question is: are we okay with for-profit companies intentionally writing software that can lead to deaths?