It's very disappointing to see The Atlantic succumb to the same profit motive that drives all media outlets. Immediately upon opening the article, what do I see

It's very disappointing to see The Atlantic succumb to the same profit motive that drives all media outlets. Immediately upon opening the article, what do I see? A Mazda ad. Therein lies the rub. Tesla doesn't do paid advertising, and so all the media outlets, including The Atlantic, reflexively attack Tesla at every opportunity, regardless of the facts. If you are talking how many accidents happen under autonomous driving, or how many accidents self-driving vehicles "caused", you are asking the wrong question. Any discussion of autonomous driving safety must always be compared to the baseline level of safety that human driving achieves. Tesla's driving software is statistically much safer than human driving. When used properly, the software is probably MUCH MUCH safer than human driving (actual usage includes some proportion of improper use along with the expected proper use -- despite this improper operation, it's still safer overall). This is not at all a situation where banning or severely restricting self-driving software will save lives. Quite the contrary. The software is safer than humans. If you ban it, you will kill people, because you'll be replacing safe (assisted) driving with unsafe human (unassisted) driving. Missy Cummings has served on the board of directors of a Tesla competitor. It is known that she has a conflict of interest with Tesla. This is fact, not opinion -- she is required by NHTSA to recuse herself from any handling of Tesla cases. It is highly inappropriate for Missy Cummings to be speaking to the media about Tesla.