You're looking at it strictly from a safety perspective which is a small part of the whole picture. If we looked at transportation from a safety perspective throughout history, we'd still be walking everywhere. What's the risk of crashing and dying while walking? Zero; it's fully optimized for safety. We rode horses and now drive cars to save time. Driving to work is unquestionably a better experience than riding a horse into work every day, but it could be better- we could be sleeping on our way into the office, or starting our work day as we leave our driveway, or eating a good breakfast and finishing our makeup (while not endangering everyone else).

Having commuting time available as what amounts to "free time" is an insane boost to daily life. A quick google says Americans spend 12.2 days per year in their cars. If 300 million people can save 12 days' time per year, you're freeing up ten million years of time every year.

I'm not advocating for throwing everyone in self driving cars untested and who cares how many people die, but if, on the journey to saving many millennia of time every year, a person is killed, why should the company be sued into oblivion? If we're going to sue everyone into oblivion whenever anything doesn't go quite right, why would any company ever try to take on difficult problems?