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Self-Driving Cars are Coming, But When?

My son-in-law and I debated this question.

How soon will self-driving cars be running around on the streets of America? See this FutureStructure article, Ford Has Big Plans for Self-Driving Cars and They Start in Pittsburgh about the different types of technology that can enable them to operate independent of the driver.

My son-in-law thinks that these vehicles are decades away, not years away. He believes that while they might be 95 percent there within a few years, all the exceptions to the general rules that a human being driving a car adjusts to, will be terribly hard to overcome with technology.

For my part, I think that technology development is now moving so fast that solutions will be found. I think it will be five to 10 years max!

Stay tuned for either government intervention to stop the fielding of these vehicles; legal action to stop them; or for all the technology to be developed and my next and final car may be autonomous. 

Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.