This is like saying "N people die from food poisoning at restaurants each year. Lets ban food created by humans, and only allow food created and tested by machines".
What a stupid comparison, cars can still transport you from a to b. I don't give a damn about some peoples enjoyment when people die all day on the streets.
Replace driving with terrorism when you talk about casualties and personal freedom. I don't want to live in that world, but i have to unless i get hit by a drunken driver.
32,000 deaths a year from driving in US.
500,000 deaths a year from cancer in US.
If it was me investing, I'd put my money into solving the cancer issue. Even if you can shave 5% off that death toll, you've already done more than eradicating cars would.
The problem is driverless cars sounds like awesome fun. Solving cancer is the harder problem.
I would be interested in seeing these numbers adjusted for age. My belief is that traffic accidents tend to kill younger people while cancer tends to kill older people. If I'm right, one car crash death would likely eliminate more potential years lived than many cancer deaths.
I mean, I'm not saying your point is invalid, or that trying to extend our lives by fighting the 'old age' diseases is without value, but I do think that the number of deaths does not tell the whole story.
I think that an important difference is that we already know how to solve the car problem, in terms of technology. We can't really say the same for curing cancer.
A valid analogy would be "N people die from someone dropping her knife, the knife bouncing on the floor and stabbing a nearby fellow restaurant customer in the chest". This doesnt' happen often, so we don't really feel the need for checks there. We do have automated systems to check food quality all the way from the farm to the consumer, though.
I don't really want to live in that world.