part of humans learning to drive safely is knowing that flouting traffic laws increases your chance of being stopped, fined, or if you’re not the right demographic, worse things. we calibrate our behavior to maximize speed and minimize cops, and to avoid being at-fault in an accident, which is a major hit to insurance rates.

autonomous vehicles can’t be cited for moving violations. they’re learning to maximize speed without the governor of traffic laws. in the absence of speed and citation data, it’s hard to measure how safe they are. there is no systemic incentive for them to care about safety, except for bad press.