The number of recalls issued weekly by the car industry gives lie to that claim. No, we just live with the risk. Because we love our cars so much.

Just recently it was discovered a series of air bags manufactured in a small window of a couple of days, would instead of protecting the occupants, would emit high-speed shrapnel into their chest and face killing them. Quite an oversight.

That recall is actually far larger than a few airbags made over a couple days (it's more like 65-70 million airbags) but this is exactly my point. The operating principle of an SRS system is pretty straightforward. Computer detects a crash, computer fires the airbags. It's actually a separate module that's only got the one job. Despite its relative simplicity there are also recalls where it sometimes fails to fire the airbag [1], or sometimes fires it for no reason at all! [2]

If the automakers can't catch problems in a simple system like this, just imagine what sort of new and exciting failures we'll see in an inadequately-tested car autopilot! These things need to be very thoroughly tested before we allow lots of them on the road, and that needs to happen before they omit the steering wheel.

[1] http://www.automotive-fleet.com/channel/safety-accident-mana...

[2] https://www.autoblog.com/2015/10/30/fca-recalls-894k-total-v...

Don’t you think that the number of recalls would be even higher without motor racing being used as a proving ground?

If your airbag fires you’re already in an accident and might die anyway. You’ve already accepted that risk. There are probably better recall examples but I’m not sure it’d disprove the underlying point though.

But isn't that what they are doing right now? The only difference in terms of your argument seems to be that it's not other race car drivers and spectators at risk but other drivers and pedestrians. Then again they are not racing, but testing autonomous vehicles with drivers as a backup.

The only difference.

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?