Maybe you haven't watched the auto industry enough. When a car company messes up, they end up recalling the car, settling lawsuits, and responding to new government regulation.

I would say the automobile engineers (not mechanics!) actually have a tougher job than softwaree engineers. Software is relatively easy to change. Once the car is out of the factory, it pretty much what it is even if the gas tank explodes on impact. Car manufacturers put a lot of thought into making cars, car parts, tools for cars, and so on. How many software people do you know who do that much planning? Car makers literally demolish their cars to see if they'll kill people. They do all sorts of other tests that probably put to shame any software testing suite.

I think you wrongfully blame the auto mechanic, who doesn't even belong in this analogy. He didn't design the car. He didn't sell the car. He didn't even tell you to use the car. He just fixes the problem you tell him to fix when you bring your car to him. Software writers ("engineers", feh!) are different than mechanics because one creates a mess and the other fixes messes. It's not a luxury, and I think you're unfair to auto mechanics to imply that they are disinterested and feckless workers.

I don't feel any responsibility to clean up problems other people's bugs create, either. If I came in as a maintenance programmer, I see bug-fixing and data-cleansing as separate jobs, the same way that an auto mechanic sees fixing your car and cleaning up your oil mess as separate jobs. If a car has a bug, that's the car company's problem, not the mechanics.

I think you'd do much better to not make any comparison and simply tell people to clean up their own disasters. It's not about which occupation is better than other, it's just taking responsibility for one's actions.