How many of those deaths per year are human drivers driving the same routes at the same hours in the same weather as Cruise vehicles? Without any normalization this comparison seems moot.
I strongly agree that the safety comparisons aren't anywhere near the same ballpark. They are just too apples to oranges.
All that said, I don't think that means we can't evaluate whether they're safe in the limited contexts they're being deployed in. We just have to be aware those statistics are only as good as their context (weather, geography, terrain, traffic patterns/devices/laws, social norms, etc).
I'm initially most hopeful for constrained environments (city, low speeds, parking) and Waymo in particular, because of the house amount of investment and very thoughtful and cautious strategy in terms of deployment.