> Maybe it wouldn't happen this way, but it could potentially set things back by years. Looking at the technology, pushing for early adoption might save lives.

> Maybe it wouldn't happen this way, but it could potentially set things back by years. Looking at the technology, pushing for early adoption might save lives. But looking at the politics, pushing too hard could cost lives, by making people unwilling to accept the technology. It would absolutely happen this way. Like any change, driverless cars would cause a lot of people to lose money and/or their livelihoods. So there will be a significant number of people (and businesses) who fight against the change. Look at climate change -- the actual metrics don't even matter. There is always a way to skew the display of the numbers to make a pretty graph that will convince enough of the population that there's at LEAST some legitimate controversy over the issue; which is enough to just put the decision off until the controversy is over.