The Data on Self-Driving Cars Is Clear. We Have to Change Course

I remember a lecture from a university art class I took around 2010. The professor and class were focused on imagining the future. For context, at this time I was still printing out directions from MapQuest because I was still using a RAZR phone.

We had a week focused on locative media, and one thing that stuck with me was when the professor said "My question is not whether self-driving cars will become reality, but how long it will take before it's illegal for people to drive". That class felt pretty wild at the time, but now it's always humorous to me when stuff like this comes out. I remember when Black Mirror got popular, and I had already had lectures on all their shocking plot points.

Gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/02/opinion/self-driving-cars...

At this point “full self-driving is almost here” feels like one of those software deadlines that keeps getting pushed because someone forgot about the edge cases. Except the edge cases here are things like rain, squirrels, pedestrians, construction, and the entire concept of “cities.

I can't tell if they're comparing apples to oranges here. For example, are the stats adjusted to account for the fact that self driving cars are only driving on roads that are not icy, whereas we human drivers drive in all kinds of conditions?