The whole thing is probably just an outgrowth of the political spats between China and Japan. They have published articles slamming Akiharaba over the years to.
The amount of people that are screwed when overspeeding, I think the sacrifice of "Emergencies" or whatever is necessary. Really, how often are there times where you need to speed up? Count that against how many times people are overspeeding and putting people in danger.
I'm all in for self driving cars. Trust or no, i'd rather put myself in the hands of something that is more accurate than everyone else is.
Our world is already taken over by computers. Algorithms run our lives. If only one breaks, the stock market goes to hell. We build fiber lines from one stock market to another to reduce latency. Not because we need it. Because the algorithms to. And even if they are just 1 millisecond late, they fail.