The Google car is a weird exception and more of a golf cart, but the general idea is that it is your responsibility to supervise the car and be prepared to take over if necessary. Wired just had a great article about how the car could tell you when it was uncertain about something, maybe an odd shadow or bump that could be a pet or something...
The simple fact is there will be almost no collisions (front end anyway, the cars will still get hit...) and what there are will be people who took over or were self-driving and then tried to blame the automation. But (for liability reasons for the manufacturers) everything will have been recorded in detail.
But the fact that within the next couple years automation will clearly be better (from a safety and efficiency standpoint) will be ignored by many and the clothes rending panic at every incident involving any car with any automation will grow to a roar despite the numbers of actual incidents and severity of injury being *far* in favor of the automation. "Tesla Fires" X10.
Because people fear change and existing businesses exploit that.