It's or course true that if you exclude all dangerous human driver scenarios, you're left with something unrealistically safe. But it's not entirely an apples

It's or course true that if you exclude all dangerous human driver scenarios, you're left with something unrealistically safe. But it's not entirely an apples to apples comparison. People who want to drive recklessly will not switch on self driving. Self driving cars are pretty new simply because it's a new technology, how will they compare against a banged up 30 yo car when they are themselves 30 yo? They may in fact fare worse, because there is more reliance on fragile components like cameras or lidar. How will they deal with the things like dodgy brakes or the one gear that doesn't work? These are things humans can mostly adapt to. The other point, not raised by GP, is that often self driving only works on fairly safe roads anyway, whereas humans drive everywhere, skewing the stats. But I guess broadly I agree, it is possible that on average, self driving is already safer, simply because it eliminates the variance. Best driver is better than self driving, but average - not.