>Are issues like this going to cause the law to require a human "standby driver" ready to take over, canceling many of the hoped-for advantages of self-driving cars?
The law can say whatever it wants but there's effectively no such thing as a "standby" (for <30+ second timeframes) for a driving system that's operating autonomously. The driver is watching a movie, reading a book, or sleeping. And if the driver isn't allowed to do any of those things--say by the system shutting down if they take their eye off the road for more than 5 seconds--no, then, the system is largely useless.
In which case people won't pay for it except to the degree that it's essentially an assistive driving safety system.
The law can say whatever it wants but there's effectively no such thing as a "standby" (for <30+ second timeframes) for a driving system that's operating autonomously. The driver is watching a movie, reading a book, or sleeping. And if the driver isn't allowed to do any of those things--say by the system shutting down if they take their eye off the road for more than 5 seconds--no, then, the system is largely useless.
In which case people won't pay for it except to the degree that it's essentially an assistive driving safety system.