The comparison for safety needs to be made to the average car driven. Teslas autonomous control has 1 accident in 7 million miles while the average is 1 accident in 1 million miles. With a rating 7 times better we should be aiming to have this in place on every car asap, not worrying about the odd time it fails, because right now the standard is 7 times worse than it needs to be, which probably translates into 7 times the death rate.
Tesla cars do indeed have the features you ask for. Your hands must be on the wheel. The Autopilot system will disengage after 20 seconds otherwise. Repeat violations will disable the system for the rest of the day. This system has always been in place.
The FSD system is even more stringent. An internal camera monitors your head position. It will disable if you're not looking forward.
Yeah, I'm not believing that it's as safe as they claim.
I've seen car crash videos where the cars have nearly driven into trains at RR crossings.
Driver neglect is an issue too. Also seen videos of people watching movies, with sunshades up so they can't see anything at all, sleeping, and so forth.
They need to put some mechanisms to ensure that drivers are still engaged and paying attention. I've seen some makers require that hands be on the wheel at all times and will disengage if they're off too long.
Tesla has published the Q2'24 Vehicle Safety Report. The report claims that Tesla EVs with Autopilot handily beat the national average in vehicle safety. While EVs without Autopilot also apparently outperformed the national average, they fall short of Autopilot-enabled cars.