Are you arguing that a machine does not have better reaction times than a human being? Are you arguing that a machine can fall asleep, drink and drive, panic in a high stress situation?

Aren't you the same person who called for holding the developer liable for writing software with a bug? Are you accusing the developer of promising something that is impossible (not hitting a pedestrian in a crosswalk?) or simply implementing it wrong?

It's worth pointing out that we have no idea yet who is at fault in this accident. It could easily be someone who simply walked out in front of traffic when they weren't paying attention.

"Are you saying X" is a pretty aggressive way to frame your argument.

The above poster seems pretty clear that it is NOT obvious that cars will necessarily drive safer than humans on average, in the same way it is NOT obvious that we will ever have General Artificial Intelligence.

These are very complicated problems, and the machines are currently (significantly) worse than human drivers, so I think it's fair to question the argument that "everything will work out eventually"

I think the idea that self driving cars "may not ever be" safer than human drivers is ludicrous, even fatuous. We set an abysmally low bar for safety.

I think that is why the very assertive "Are you saying..." is appropriate.

Maybe you're right, progress is inevitable.

But humans always overestimate the rate of progress, and think we will be living in some amazing futurescape in the next 10 years.

The answer to your first “question” of course is that it depends on the machine, how it’s built, programmed, and the context of operation. Machines can have much faster reflexes, or they can freeze.