In some countries, drivers are expected to prove their ability to operate heavy machinery safely, held that promise, and governments prioritize zero deaths in their spending and policy making.

In the U.S., billions of dollars that could be spent on proven ways of solving the problem are instead spend on speculative robotic car development.

Robotic cars are not the only solution. They may eventually be as effective as proven solutions that are offensive to U.S. car supremacists, but as of today, robotic cars have proven only to be better than untrained, inattentive U.S. drivers and the life-threatening domestic policies that enable them. Robotic cars aren’t trying to solve the problem; they’re trying to capture spending on the problem. If transportation policy magically changed overnight to force immediate, funded implementation of proven safety processes from other countries, the excuses given for Waymo and others to beta-test their “these fatalities are a necessary accident in service of zero deaths” robotic vehicles would no longer hold water.