Problem is your the average for human drivers is brought down mostly by bad drivers. However, even the if we talking about averages 50% of people are better than average. I would not feel to confident in a self driving car that is only approximately as good as 1 out of 2 drivers. I would want the car to be better than high upper percentile. Especially knowing an automated system can have reaction times that can put any humans reaction times to shame.
So yes equal safety is far from enough. Especially considering 50% would be better drivers than a self driving car that was only as good as the average driver. Your asking 50% of people and some percentage of people who overestimate their abilities to trust a car that would perform worse than them.
Most of your point is just the Lake Wobegon fallacy at work. Obviously you think you're not a below average driver. But everyone does, and lots of them are wrong.
The part that isn't is that you're imagining a non-linear distribution where a significant fraction of accidents are the fault of these identifiable "bad drivers" and that the MEDIAN human driver is actually better than the average/median SDV.
To which I ask: is there evidence for this? It's a new argument, and I haven't seen it made before.
Like from that point alone your asking a large portion of people to trust something less capable than them-selves. We should be aiming for the higher/upper percentiles not the average. Especially, considering how fast a digital control system can operate, average is a horribly low bar.
-Edit-
If throw in the effect that a lot people over estimate their abilities your going to get even fewer people who trust a self driving car that is only as good as average.
So yes equal safety is far from enough. Especially considering 50% would be better drivers than a self driving car that was only as good as the average driver. Your asking 50% of people and some percentage of people who overestimate their abilities to trust a car that would perform worse than them.