> I feel like you have to say this out loud because many people in these discussions don't share this view. Billion dollar corporate experiments conducted in public are sacrosanct for some reason.

Yes, and I find it annoying that some people do seem to think Waymo should never be criticized. That said, we already have an astounding amount of data, and that data clearly shows that the experiment is successful in reducing crashes. Waymos are absolutely, without question already making streets safer than if humans were driving those cars.

> If you want to spend your efforts improving safety _anywhere_ it's right here.

We can and should do both. And as your comment seems to imply but does not explicitly state, we should also improve road design to be safer, which Europe absolutely kicks America's ass on.

> More than 50% of roadway fatalities involve drugs or alcohol. If you want to spend your efforts improving safety _anywhere_ it's right here. Self driving cars do not stand a chance of improving outcomes as much as sensible policy does. Europe leads the US here by a wide margin.

Could you spell out exactly what "sensible" policy changes you were thinking of? Driving under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol is already illegal in every state. Are you advocating for drastically more severe enforcement, regardless of which race the person driving is, or what it does to the national prison population? Or perhaps for "improved transit access", which is a nice idea, but will take many decades to make a real difference?