The difference is that all self-driving cars benefit from the knowledge created by bumping into the edge cases. People can only do this in an ad-hoc manner (i.e. personal experience, taught by mentor, etc)
It doesn't even have to be in a place that doesn't get much snow.
First snow fall in Calgary looks like what you get in a standard snow storm in a city in the south east. Its even funnier if the first snow fall is early and then there are another two months of sun and no snow and then you get a repeat during the second snow fall. People have to relearn how to drive in snow every year.
People are bad drivers in good conditions, they just happen to be able to be bad drivers in bad conditions as well.
Bah, it's not just the first snow storm. They salt the roads so much in Ontario that people think they know how to drive in bad conditions but actually they just know how to drive in bad conditions on heavily salted roads. If they hit a patch of unsalted road they get in trouble quite quickly.
In my experience Saskatoon fares a lot better. They don't salt as heavily because it's often cold enough that salt doesn't work as well, and because judges don't blame the municipality for not salting when there's an accident.
I think the poster assumed that the person was trained to fit their surroundings. We are all hyper-fitted to what we know best and what we encounter every day, and will probably fail spectacularly if we're unaware of that.
This could not be less true among people driving in unfamiliar conditions. (http://legacy.wusa9.com/story/news/local/virginia/2016/01/20...)
The difference is that all self-driving cars benefit from the knowledge created by bumping into the edge cases. People can only do this in an ad-hoc manner (i.e. personal experience, taught by mentor, etc)