Certainly. But for the OP's point of liability being "The. Critical. Question." to stand the question of who gets paid by whom in the event of a death by autono

Certainly. But for the OP's point of liability being "The. Critical. Question." to stand the question of who gets paid by whom in the event of a death by autonomous vehicle, and how much, is somehow going to be more important than all the other economic and societal benefits of those vehicles. The U.S. has around 25% of the world's personal vehicles, what it does is certainly going to play a big part, but if it does something crazy to restrict the technology it's just going to be developed elsewhere.