

Yep, the DARPA Grand Challenge of 2004 spurred the modern self-driving car era. But attempts at self driving cars were made as early as the 70s - earlier, depending on how you define autonomous driving. And Waymo has had driveless cars on roads since 2017.
The sustained dose from a class 1 lidar is well below critical safety levels. You’re no more likely to get cancer from car lidar than you are from regular use of household LED lights. But sure, let’s just add lidar to the long list of things that people will irrationally scaremonger about.