It seems like a useful thing for someone (the "government"?) to develop would be a some sort of standard simulator interface that can also be used for regulator

It seems like a useful thing for someone (the "government"?) to develop would be a some sort of standard simulator interface that can also be used for regulatory purposes. It's not perfect (It would be something of a cat-and-mouse game to prevent companies from just reverse-engineering the tests and companies like VW would drive really safely in the simulator but then unsafely in real life so they can go faster or whatever), but at least it would be safer and cover more scenarios than real-life trials.