The driver wouldn't be prosecuted if she just had a lapse of attention. She had taken her phone and was watching a TV show. That's a deliberate act.

I'm not saying the driver wasn't negligent in watching TV, instead of the road. In fact, I don't think anyone in this thread is saying that.

I am saying that passively watching the road for hours on end is much harder than actively driving.

Many people write this notion in this thread. Do you have any data for this BTW? How are you claiming this confidently? Have you driven a self-driving car? Many people (myself included) find it quite easy to monitor the road in it for long periods of time. If the driver was not one of them, she shouldn't have taken the job and risked innocent lives.

https://www.mitre.org/sites/default/files/pdf/pr-3426-lesson... is a 2019 literature review of the phenomenon - section 2, reaction times in response to deviations in automated tasks, is of particular relevance here. (Summary: humans are bad at this)

How are you so confident that you are different from all the Tesla owners whose self-crashing autopilots drove their vehicles into stationary objects, fire trucks, semis, etc?

What makes you confident that you are actually good at it, and are not the victim of Dunning-Kruger? Do you regularly find yourself in the process of stopping your self-serving car from crashing into things?

Or has your car simply not crashed yet?

> all the Tesla owners whose self-crashing autopilots drove their vehicles into stationary objects

All the 3 of them? Among millions of Tesla vehicles out there and the hundreds of millions of miles driven? Is that even a considerable risk when compared to the general (non-zero!) risks of driving?

For me personally I simply know when I watch the road and when I don't. For some people this might be hard, for others - not so much. I am aware of when I pull out my phone or distract myself and when not.

I'm sure you're aware of when you've pulled out your phone, or are playing with your infotainment system. (You should also stop doing it, it's negligent and illegal.)

But are you just watching or are you seeing the road? How many times have you taken control from your car doing something stupid and dangerous?

Unless the answer to that second question is 'I do it all[1] the time, and I'm batting 20/20', what makes you confident that you'll catch the next instance?

[1] If that's really the case, you should probably short TSLA, it doesn't sound like their car can safely operate.

It is rather unlikely, statistically, that this was a single lapse. Or that a single lapse would cause an accident. It's not like the driver's finger was hovering over a nuclear launch button.

Yes, I think I would be able to do this job safely. Not everyone has problems with focus to such an extent that you can't help but be on the phone when you need to be paying attention.