I'm a human Uber driver -- part-time -- who's driven approx. 60k miles in the city of Pittsburgh during the last three years and delivered 3,800 sober and drunk riders safely to their destinations.
Pedestrians -- many apparently suicidal -- are by far my No. 1 concern. (Mad bicyclists are number 2, but only because there are fewer of them.) Autonomous cars may be able to recognize/see pedestrians and be programmed to stop before striking them, but it'll be tough.
I figure I've reacted just in time or preemptively avoided hitting at least 100 people on foot who popped up in front of me out of nowhere, blatantly ignored traffic signals, didn't use crosswalks or thought merely stepping into a crosswalk (and not looking at traffic) created a force field that prevented them from being hit/hurt.
City traffic is naturally chaotic, unpredictable and dangerous in uncountable ways. Fifteen pedestrians die every day now. ( Deaths In 2015 -- 5,376 pedestrians and 818 bicyclists were killed in crashes with motor vehicles (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Traffic Safety Facts). http://www.pedbikeinfo.org/data/factsheet_crash.cfm
Whoever's at fault in the Arizona tragedy - and I'm betting on the poor dead woman - autonomous cars may or may not turn out to be more dangerous to pedestrians than pedestrians are to themselves.
Steigerwald is a former journalist at the LA Times and two Pittsburgh dailies. His books include “Dogging Steinbeck” (2013) and “30 Days a Black Man” (2017).