I was pointing out that the author's logic is hyperbolic and naive, making it seem as if statistically minimizing risk is the only thing that matters to anyone. To your point, we also "pay" ~88,000 lives per year to allow our society to satisfy its recreational alcohol consumption needs, but that is what society has chosen.
I do agree it is a problem that we share roads, and many people don't take the risks seriously. People's poor judgement, e.g. using apps on their phone while going 70mph in a 3,000+ lb vehicle is disturbing. Motorcyclists experience things like this vividly, and often daily. Maybe fully automated cars are the only answer to that though, because relying on improving everyone's judgement, or policing it, might be the least realistic solution conceived (for anything).
Of course we want to make driving safer, and in that way autonomous capabilities are a ground breaking safety feature. Other cars probably need to be safer too, since we are a very, very long way away from even a simple majority of autonomous cars. Maybe one day we'll see the "end game" of zero-ish road fatalities, but that relatively distant possibility is not a reason to essentially outlaw driving. Keep in mind autonomous cars are also very expensive, and will be for some time. If the "outlaw" part came a bit too early, it could end up looking a lot like "People too poor to buy and maintain a brand-new car are not allowed to drive on public roads".
There are plenty more reasonable steps to be taken before that, e.g. since teenager drivers account for a disproportionate number of accidents/injuries, so maybe we don't need high-school kids driving. Or, maybe we need to require extra licensing for a housewife that wants to pilot a 5,500lb Escalade at highway speeds. Maybe people should go to jail instead of paying a tiny fine if they are caught using Social Media while driving.
The list goes on, without copping to the naive, even juvenile, conclusion that outlawing human drivers is logical because autonomous cars are safer.