> Most of us are going to expect nothing short of perfection from these machines to really trust them.

I hope not. I'd like them as safe as possible, but I already expect that they'll be better than human drivers, and that ought to be sufficient to allow them.

However, there's another issue in play here: in addition to the possibility of holding self-driving cars to a higher standard than humans, people like the feeling of control, and will feel "better" about an accident where they see someone to blame.