This is not about crashes. By all accounts, the Waymo cars are mostly fully self driving, I beleive even the article author agrees with that. This includes crash avoidance, to the extent that they can.
The remote operation seems to be more about navigational issues and reading the road conditions. Things like accidentally looping, or not knowing how to proceed with an unexpected obstacle. Things that don't really happen to human drivers, even the greenest of new drivers.
Ok, but crashes are much worse than navigational issues or accidentally looping. It’s only status quo bias that makes us think driving is more solved if you get the accidental looping fixed before the crashing.
Only true up to some extent. If a car can't get you anywhere, then crashing is almost irrelevant: you won't use it, because there's nothing to be gained from that. A car looping around in a parking lot is extremely safe, but completely useless.
