[0] https://www.natlawreview.com/article/most-common-causes-coll...
- Distracted drivers, bringing their attention back to the hazards on the road.
- Fatigued drivers, by alerting them to a hazard they missed.
- Drunk... yeah, probably won't help much here. Hopefully we can get to the point where you can't start such cars while impaired by alcohol.
- Speeding - again, improving knowledge of hazards, such as corners they can't navigate at the current speed, or vehicles which are at drastically slower/faster speeds.
Don't be quick to dismiss how technology can augment humans. Anything a car can learn to eventually handle on its own, it can notify a human about on a much faster time scale (as in it won't be the perpetual 3 years away, it could be now, since we don't have to perfect the reaction, just the detection).
And, perhaps most importantly for you, this doesn't preclude the development and deployment of fully automatic driving systems when they're actually at level 4/5. In the mean time, we can make a meaningful and broad drop in the vehicle accident statistics.
EDIT: Since this may not be clear - I expect this information and these warnings to be coming 4-5 seconds before an incident would occur, giving the driver classes you've pointed out sufficient time to react.
If the goal really is just to reduce how many people die in traffic there are far easier ways than self-driving cars. The goal of self-driving cars seems to be far more than just reducing traffic deaths, that's just the part that sounds good in public.
It's a good article with coherent arguments.
I don't know why authors give their work flippant titles and then are confused when people assume it's a flippant piece of work.
'Don't judge a book by its cover' isn't a reasonable complaint when the author has deliberately given it a silly cover!
When it comes to titles for articles, this is both memorable and far less click-baity as is normal these days.
To apply this to self-driving cars, we need more driver support. Visually identify cars and obstacles which could be an issue to supplant the driver's identification. Help the driver keep in a lane. Help the driver keep a speed relative to traffic around them. Help drivers see in the dark, and past bright headlights. Help drivers see lane lines through snow packed roads.
Help the driver see and hear things, but don't override their decisions.
Some of these technologies are available today in luxury cars - let's make it available to everyone on the road.