What fuelled the headlines is that the car ran a light while engaging in legally dubious "cowboy" testing with real passengers. The human analogy is "<politici

What fuelled the headlines is that the car ran a light while engaging in legally dubious "cowboy" testing with real passengers. The human analogy is "<politician> ran a red light while drunk". The point is that they made errors of judgement that then caused this unsafe situation, rather than it being a random accident. (Especially in this case, in which high-handed defiance of both principles and the law is an established narrative.)