This is a great way to get people used to the fact that the car is getting better than them at driving. For now the system forces you to do things yourself, but when people get convinced that the car does a good job, they'll want the car to drive for them.
It doesn't matter if the driver knows what to do in an accident, if they're not actively driving the car there's no chance that they could react fast enough to do anything useful. The person sitting in the "driver's seat" is just another passenger.
If all a plane had to do in an emergency was decelerate to a stop while avoiding obstacles, we would have gotten rid of pilots entirely some time ago.
As long as the car does, on average, a better job than human drivers, I don't see where the problem is. Sure, there will still be accidents, including some that could be avoided with an alert backup human drivers. But as long as the number is lower than the number we have today, I just don't see where the problem is.
