>> Regulators test new products until they feel certain that people will not be put at risk. Inventions from elevators to aspirin were subject to fierce scrutiny before they were broadly adopted. We can’t apply the same level of scrutiny to driverless cars.

This article is clearly written by someone who has never worked on a safety critical system. There is a method for establishing risk and making risk-benefit tradeoffs, not just feeling certain. If we did that many more people would be killed.

If the author is arguing about public scrutiny, then I generally agree with the argument, but existing safety engineering practices will work for driverless cars.

Source: I work on hardware and software for surgical devices (among other things).