I would expect nowadays you could fairly trivially produce near life-like footage and allow self driving cars to 'play a video game' that tests tens of thousand

I would expect nowadays you could fairly trivially produce near life-like footage and allow self driving cars to 'play a video game' that tests tens of thousands of situations as a pre-requisite for certification. The great thing about computer generated test cases is you don't need real footage of every hypothetical awful thing that could happen i.e. a truck losing control and rolling over sideways. These could be a stage 1 test -- a pre-requisite to real testing. Like the hazards test before you are allowed to sit the drive test with a real drive test employee [1] to make sure you're not a retard. [1]: https://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/~/media/images/licences/hpt_example2.jpg?h=319&w=400&la=en https://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/~/media/images/licences/hpt_...