There's no fear of huge jury verdicts
Rich companies like Google and Uber may be behind self driving cars, but they are being run in separate companies. If they get a billion dollar verdict against them they simply declare bankruptcy. The parent company would have things organized such that they maintain ownership of the IP so they can simply create Waymo II and try again.
Only a lunatic thinks we need no regulations because corporations can regulate themselves. Any idiot who thinks that needs to read up on what happened in the US in the late 1800s and early 1900s when corporations were effectively unregulated, all the abuses they committed, which were the reason we started regulating them. You can argue that regulations go too far in some cases, but not that they are unnecessary. To take such a position is simply willful ignorance of facts and history.
And I say this as someone who considers himself a libertarian. Libertarians believe in individual freedom, and companies being free to experiment with self driving cars without any laws or regulations MOST DEFINITELY impedes on my individual freedom to not be killed by a poorly programmed not ready for the real world autonomous car that runs me down while I'm riding my bike on the side of the road!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
