In the United States there are few legal repercussions when a human driver kills someone as long as they are sober and utter the phrase "I didn't see them". Therefore, biking on US roads means trusting in the inherent goodness (and attentiveness) of the drivers around you.

Driverless cars run by a company protecting itself from reputational and legal risk seems less dystopian than the status quo.

What does that even mean?

If Waymo hits a cyclist which leads to death, and Waymo is found to be at fault, that's definitely going to make headlines and potentially lead to a pause of the entire operation.

We’ve already seen regulators are willing to take strong actions against dangerous operators.

These regulators should be supported and kept clear of regulatory capture. Other countries can do this, so should the US.

That's just being a cynic for cynicism sake. They are already owned by a billionaire company, so there is no ipo. And they still have at least a couple of decades where the game they need to play is get riders and legislators to trust them, so they are incentived to make their car very safeful so they can roll out to more cities and countries. It takes one bad accident to get the public to turn against them, and there is no technological edge that can save you if the government decides to make your entire business illegal.

Waymo is a subsidiary of Alphabet.

And not sure why you think running stop signs or any anti safety measures would increase profits.