Self-driving cars are an additive technology, and there is certainly a place for them, but they should be at best (like all cars) your 3rd or maybe even 4th best option for daily activities.
Poor driving isn't limited to drunks or boomers.
Your comment just made me think about the whole self-driving car thing as an extension of the car-centric thinking of the US (and how car-centricity is essentially anti-social, but that's beside the point), and now even the US is losing the car race to China, but it will maintain it's car-centric philosophy based on momentum rather than practicality. Could public transport be a national security priority? (mostly tongue in cheek, but just a smidge not).
If your goal is to increase autonomy [1], wealth, entrepreneurship, and happiness and decrease death and health concerns, racism, obesity, and other things you need to move away from car-only building and design patterns. I also think busses are a problem because they just reinforce bad habits. For most municipalities a bus is just a worse version of your car which is why they're largely unsuccessful for the masses. Bike/walk/rail is, in my view, quite literally the only good path forward for future transportation development.
I don't think the US is losing the car race to China though. What race? Why are we even in a race all of a sudden? I drive an EV and like them but aside from emissions I'm not sure one is really all that better than another (I find EVs more convenient though).
[1] Been a bad person lately? Maybe the government and the vehicle facial recognition technology says sorry no driving for you. Now what? Secondarily for the elderly (as the single-issue voter OP has mentioned) walking/biking/rail allows for better outcomes and for folks to participate more in daily life. Driving becomes more and more hazardous as we age and folks wind up stuck at home.