Often we do not. The Freakonomics podcast had an episode titled The Perfect Crime where they basically say if you want to kill somebody, hit them with your car because that’s often not punished beyond a ticket.

This trial just happened where there was no punishment:

https://www.macombgov.org/node/55/news/former-warren-police-...

>According to evidence presented from law enforcement at trial, on September 30, 2024, Burke was operating his patrol vehicle at a high rate of speed without emergency lights or siren activated when it crashed with another vehicle. Burke's partner was injured in the crash, and 34-year-old Cedric Hayden Jr. and 33-year-old Dejuan Pettis were killed.

Then there was this one a couple years ago:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Jaahnavi_Kandula

https://www.theriolindanews.com/2025/04/22/529861/license-to...

https://calmatters.org/investigation/2025/04/license-to-kill...

You can't compare autonomous systems that drive hundreds of thousands of vehicles to a single person. You have to compare it to hundreds of thousands of people.

American drivers kill ~100 people every day behind the wheel of a car. If autonomy were 50% safer and was deployed at such scale that it replaced 50% of all hours driven it would save 25 lives every day. It would also kill 25 people every day.

Sadly, many people will clutch their pearls at inevitable headlines like Bloodthirsty Elon Sacrifices 25 Innocents on the Altar of Profit Every Day! and, their emotions sufficiently primed, they will happily pull the plug on autonomy, sending 25 people per day to their deaths and feeling great about themselves as they do it.