Imagine if instead he had been using a car without autopilot and had killed himself and or others. That’s how these “falling asleep at the wheel” stories usually go.
I feel like this distracts from the fact that the self-driving feature was probably safer than falling asleep at a manual car for everyone involved.
So self driving cars need to not only be safer than human drivers for acceptance, but significantly safer. They might be, and especially further into the future when the number of human drivers is smaller and there are good protocols for collaborating among self driving vehicles. But while they are the novelty the stories will look like this, and for good reason.
FWIW, as an individual I don't accept those things. If I had my way, we'd have more effective solutions to those problems.
But my views on the issue are apparently not widespread enough to change the status quo.
In monotonous structures (e.g. long alleyways, long straight roads through nowhere) humans already have that problem - boredom tires them out.
It's possible that the only reason I never crashed was pure luck.
I only bring this up to say that needing to focus on the road might not be enough to keep a driver alert.
"Officer, it was for the best!"