Driverless cars

Driverless cars have been pootling around on their own for some time now, but in this country they’ve never been allowed out on the public road. That’s all about to change, with fully autonomous vehicles set to hit the streets by January! Could this finally be the death of the steering wheel?

There’s currently a huge amount of interest in driverless cars, with Google just one of the companies to trial its own autonomous vehicles. While Google cars have been able to drive around California, rivals in the UK – like Oxford University’s self-driving RobotCar have had to make do with driving on private test tracks.

Google self-driving cars hit the road!

According to TechCrunch, though, we may be seeing cars whizzing around on their own by the start of next year, with the government-backed Technology Strategy Board calling for test sites where autonomous systems can be trialled.

And once the driverless cars are out there driving around without human interaction, it seems like only a matter of time before legislation changes to catch up with the tech that already exists, and we see autonomous cars become a part of everyday life. Scientists at Oxford University have even come up with a way of turning regular cars into autonomous driverless vehicles for as little as £100! Cars that can drive themselves to work while we spend our morning watching and reading about gadgets? We can’t wait!