If you had a chance to go to the Consumer Electronics Show a few weeks ago in Las Vegas, chances are that you were impressed with the different types of drones and what they could do. Maybe you were interested in the newest 4K televisions that had images so life-like, that they were unreal. However, the media focused on what automakers were bringing to the show; particularly the upgrades to the autonomous features that serve as precursors to fully self-driving cars.
The showings by Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz were impressive by most accounts. An article by extremetech.com was particularly detailed in describing the Audi A7 and how it was driven from Silicon Valley in California to Las Vegas with hardly any assistance from “human” drivers.
Indeed, the observations from journalists did not make national headlines, but the level of assistance means that fully autonomous cars are getting closer to being a reality.
Indeed, we noted in past posts that self-driving cars may be on the road by the end of the decade. However, there are elements of this technology present in current vehicles, such as park assist, automatic braking and blind-spot assist systems.
Even when autonomous cars become mainstream, it is arguably certain that many controls will still be managed by human drivers. With that, the basic tenets of driving will still likely apply. Essentially, drivers will still need to use reasonable while behind the wheel, which means that they will have to drive as a reasonable person would in similar circumstances.