The thing I see is that he wasn't really doing anything strange. Building structures and digging tunnels that humanity has been doing for a very long time. The

The thing I see is that he wasn't really doing anything strange. Building structures and digging tunnels that humanity has been doing for a very long time. There exists laws, regulations and engineering knowledge developed over thousands of years to ensure that these activities are safe. In order for this to happen he had ignore this body of safe practice knowledge that has been built up. Safety regulations are written in blood and to ensure that more blood isn't spilt unsafe practices that result in death have to be punished. I don't think that there is an equivalent with the autonomous cars issue. It is a young field and we still don't know what the acceptable practices are in it.