[3] - Is all that matters. The industry and their constituents could easily push back driverless cars 20 years, and this is without any catastrophic accidents happening. So I'd say about 35 years before we see driverless cars disrupting anything.
Insurance companies matter a lot, too, though they don't get much coverage in the article. Like others, I don't find the arguments for lower overall usage very persuasive, but I could buy them being significantly safer.
If enough statistical evidence accumulates to demonstrate that these are safer than manually controlled cars, look for the insurance companies to impose a severe cash penalty on driving the car yourself. If the difference is large enough, you might find yourself unable to purchase insurance for a manually controlled vehicle at any price.
The movie iRobot was an interesting take on such a future.
In a few scenes in the movie, the female lead (the robot psychologist?) reacts in horror to Will Smith manually driving his petrol driven motobike because it has not auto-pilot and 'you realise petrol is explosive don't you?!?'
And after Will Smith has the forced accident in the tunnel (when attacked by the robots), his boss accuses him of unsafe driving because the blackbox reported that he had disengaged the auto-pilot.
So quite conceivably we'll end up in a future where manual car driving is seen in the same light as drink driving or speeding is seen today.
