You are asserting that human drivers are essentially perfect, because in 80-90% of their crashes, the information necessary to avoid the collision just isn't available visually.
That seems like an incredibly optimistic view of human drivers.
Collisions happen because a driver does not look at, see, understand, or act appropriately on available visual signals. Or they are going too fast / following too closely for their actions to be effective.
Honest question.
I don't think I would.
I don't know how relevant it will be, though. I suspect that the fact that computers are always attentive, can react instantly, and follow the rules consistently will make them much safer very quickly. But we shall see!
As long as you still have the manual option, it doesn't really matter. You can just get in and drive if you want to.
As the option becomes more common, obviously impaired driving becomes less common.
That being the case, wouldn't we be limiting self-driving technology to the same traffic-related death rates as humans? Maybe 10, 20% better, but still fundamentally close.
For self-driving cars to be truly successful, the death rates will need to be an order of magnitude better. An incremental improvement won't convince governments and the public at large to trust their lives to an algorithm running inside a black box.
To be an order of magnitude better, you'll likely need to go well beyond simply processing pixels, including LIDAR and other sensors.