While we may get to the point where sensors and a form of AI can reliably drive a car, we're so far from it that we don't even know if we're heading towards the goal post.
What we need, if we want to solve the partial self driving problem right now, is not fully autonomous systems. We could start by agreeing on a way for cars to sense the road - think in the way robotic lawn mowers work where you have to bury cables. Then implement that in highways, ring roads and other long stretches of road.
Then we can agree on a way for cars to communicate and exchange relevant information.
Then we can equip cars with hardware like the Tesla have, and then use it to collect data and compare the "auto pilot" with the known working system of following a signal in the road. We still need LIDAR to reliably stop for other cars, but that is a mostly solved problem today.