The truth is that R&D spending by the USA & other leading nations (mostly by governments, either directly or indirectly) has pushed these nations forward, if they want a high GDP economy. In the USA & it is the military budget that hides massive amounts of R&D spending. The driverless cars are all linked to this, just like the drones are now being used by Amazon to deliver stuff. There are millions of examples. We have historically done a lot of R&D at Universities, but this has foolishly been cut massively, as an "austerity" measure.
And even worse we have not cut ourselves off from all the research funding from the EU - its therefore more essential than ever that that is reversed, funding research into driverless cars is just one small step in the right direction
The owner of that Tesla was busy watching a Harry Potter DVD. The cruise control was set to 74mph, when the speed limit was 65mph. During his 37 minute trip, he only had his hands on the steering wheel 25 seconds, which triggered 6 audio warnings about not being on the wheel. There may have been a misinterpretation with the software, but the human driver is suppose to be in control. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/06/20/tesla_death_crash_accident_report_ntsb/