The government currently lets anyone drive until proven unsafe. Self-driving initiatives are really only adding a few "drivers" to the road. Uber acted like a drunk teenager and they are off the road now. This system works, but with occasionally horrific humane toll. It's called capitalism
It only takes a written test to get a permit. You don't have to demonstrate safety, only knowledge of the rules of the road. You also need an adult over 21 years old to sit in the passenger seat. It is the lowest of bars
Sure but that's not a permanent thing, and frankly that is comparable to the current testing model of cars.
Furthermore, humans are not crafted beings. We can't cooperatively construct the knowledge of a young driver. Why is the terrible human bar our basis for success? Especially since this bar is only so low so that we can allow companies to compete? To have financial freedom to kill people?
My argument is that public safety does not need to be driven by financial success of companies. We've got the chance here to share knowledge for the common good. Yet, we're holding onto it so that companies can have the chance to make money.
Furthermore, why is "the lowest of bars" (in your words) our metric for success here? Usually the lowest of bars is a bad thing.
Humans are terrible abysmal drivers. I want them off of the road asap. Yet, I don't think hoarding public safety related data for financial success is the best effort towards achieving our goals.
It's not the only capitalistic way to do it. You could have private companies developing the technology but a government testing program to demonstrate some level of safety.
That is what they do with impact crash testing. Private companies design cars, and then the government crashes some to see how they do in certain scenarios.
But, the US government isn't taking this route right now, probably because they believe that SDCs have the promise of reducing traffic fatalities over the long term, so they don't want regulation to delay the process. But that's a policy decision based on calculated risk, not a necessity of a capitalist system.
