Is 5x safer a realistic goal? There are limits to how safe a car can be on a road full of human drivers, no matter what sensor suite it has and how fast its reactions are. A vehicle can only respond so quickly to control inputs. Making a computer that's five times as safe as a human might be a thousand times more difficult than making one twice as safe.
Depends how you count. Being is 5x less accidents might be unreasonably hard. But causing 5x less accidents seems reasonable, especially since most humans are that safe.
I don't have the stats, but I believe the worst 20% of drivers cause a large fraction of the accidents. That 20% often includes the uninsured, the unlicensed, the drunk, high, emotionally distressed, and the physically compromised (senile, low blood sugar, tired, etc)
That's true but beside the point. The moment autonomous cars become better than the median human driver, keeping them off the road starts costing lives every day.
