There wouldn’t be a need for an autonomous car to go on a freeway if we had decent intermodal public transit.

Just have cars like these patrolling the suburbs and picking people up for light/commuter rail, then a hub where you could get within a block of anywhere with no more than one transfer.

High Speed rail if you need to get to another urban center from there.

That’s the dream, at least.

Nobody wants to use public transit, because it’s starved dry. Nobody wants to invest in public transit, because nobody uses it. Everyone just drives, because everyone has cars. Everyone has cars because public transit is terrible.

But I do long for the day that this could pick me up and take me to the bus station/commuter rail stop.

Define “held accountable”?

If you mean who will pay out if there’s an accident, presumably Waymo will have found an insurer willing to cover them. But if you mean that someone out there must be punished to satisfy some sense of vengeance, then you may want to re-examine your values.

AFAIK nobody has died in a Waymo, and they have a very low accident rate, lower than human drivers. Calling it a suicide carriage is just not reflecting reality in any way.