They're not protesting self driving cars. And this has nothing at all to do with the reliability of human drivers. They're protesting the way the development and testing of self driving cars has put corporate interests ahead of civic safety and community consent. The people in these test cities have become non-consenting test subjects in an experiment that clearly puts corporate profit ahead of safety. When new drugs "hit the streets" there are well regulated systems of test subject consent and safety accountability to get real world testing experience and feedback. Why should this auto industry experiment be exempt from experimental and scientific ethics?
Yeah that competition really did demonstrate what an awful service all those media monopolies provided.