Autonomous cars aren't a viable tech until the roads are reengineered with rails built in. It's just way too big of a technical problem to solve with computers alone.
Right now the death rate of autonomous cars is far higher than human drivers and it is never going to catch up given that it hasn't advanced technologically recently.
As someone preparing to lay down a small (1/5 scale) railroad - you vastly underestimate the expense, difficulty, and maintenance requirement of rail. Switches and diamonds (intersections) are especially troubleprone. 2% is considered a serious grade. And derailments happen, more frequently with higher speeds and deferred maintenance.
If our rail network was as potholed and badly maintained as our roads, people would die in train accidents every day.
Rails are great for intensive, carefully manicured routes. They are not a substitute for roads.
There seem to be fairly regular (at least, more regular than one would like) AmTrak derailings in the US. That isn't to say I think it is AmTrak's doing specifically, I think it is like you said a maintenance issue coupled with everybody else who isn't on the train interacting with it.
Then there are the cases of engineers who are distracted and what not, but I'd imagine we're talking autonomous so that (hopefully) wouldn't be an issue.
Autonomous cars aren't a viable tech until the roads are reengineered with rails built in. It's just way too big of a technical problem to solve with computers alone.
Right now the death rate of autonomous cars is far higher than human drivers and it is never going to catch up given that it hasn't advanced technologically recently.