No, that's bullshit. It's physically impossible for a human to intervene on the timescales involved in motor accidents. Autonomy that requires an ever-vigilant driver to be ready to intervene at any second is literally worse than no autonomy at all; because if the driver isn't actively driving most of the time, their attention is guaranteed to stray.

I agree with you - but that's literally the stage we're at. What we have right now is like "advanced" cruise control - the person behind the wheel is still legally defined as the driver and bears responsibility for what happens. The law "allows" these systems on the road, but there is no framework out there which would shift the responsibility to anyone else but the person behind the wheel.

>> It's physically impossible for a human to intervene on the timescales involved in motor accidents.

That remains true even without any automatic driving tech - you are responsible even for accidents which happen too quickly for anyone to intervene. Obviously if you have some evidence(dashcam) showing that you couldn't avoid the accident you should be found not guilty, but the person going to court will be you - not the maker of your car's cruise control/radar system/whatever.

Currently have two cars; one Mazda '14 3 with AEB, Lane Departure alert, radar cruise, BLIS, rear cross alert - and the other an '11 Outback with none of that (but DSC and ABS, as well as AWD).

The assists are certainly helping more than anything, so I feel that the Mazda is much safer to drive in heavy traffic than the older Outback.

The cruise has autonomy over controlling the speed only, and applying brakes, but it is still autonomy. Of course since my hands never leave the wheel it may not fit with what you have in mind.

Having said that, Mazda (or Bosch?) really nailed their radar, having never failed to pick up motorbike riders even though the manual warns us to not expect it to work.

I feel more confident in a system where the ambition is smaller, yet execution more solid.

Fwiw I also tested the AEB against cardboard boxes driving through them at 30km/h not moving accelerator at all, and came away very impressed by the system. It intervened so last second I felt for sure it wasn't going to work, but it did - first time was a very slight impact, next two were complete stops with small margins.

This stuff is guaranteed to save lives and prevent costly crashes (I generally refuse to use the word "accident") on a grander scale.

The latest top end Toyota Rav4’s have that too. It’s quite amazing how well they are able to keep cruise control and maintain distance behind a car.

I do love that even though they have a ton of driver alerting features, hands have to be on the wheel at all times.

Either you have full autonomy without hands or you don’t. There is no middle ground, it’s a recipe for a disaster.

Bullshit?? It may be autonomous but these cars are still far away from driverless. YOU get in the car, you know the limitations, you just said you even consider yourself physically incapable of responding in time to motor accidents, and that the safety will worse than a non autonomous car. Sounds to me what's bullshit is your entitlement to step into an autonomous vehicle when you know it diminishes road safety. Autonomous vehicles can in theory become safer than human drivers, what is bullshit is that you want to drive them now, when they are strictly not yet safer than a human, but do so without consequences.