But it's also undeniable that there is an impossible double standard in play here. Those who believe that no autonomous vehicles should be allowed to ever exist use every accident like this to try to blanket-ban them (or to make it impossible to develop and test them, even if their safety is factually no worse (in terms of $bad_thing per vehicle mile driven) than human drivers). Those people are being emotional and cherry-picking. If every car was self-driving, the incident in the article here would have happened, but that boy in NYC would still be alive because what AV would have gunned it to beat a yellow?
No one can say which life is worth more, however if they can demonstrate that there would be fewer deaths by developing and having AVs, vs eliminating them, it's a tough sell that AVs are evil, unless there is a viable alternative that somehow never ever kills or hurts anyone.