With 90 percent of road accidents attributed to driver error, there is an idea of removing the human element entirely from the equation to make streets safer. Google has already looked into the concept of a completely autonomous car, which it simply named "Google Self-Driving Car," enven releasing a video of a person using the system as a passenger.

Like Us on Facebook

The idea of driver-less cars has attracted the attention of the European nation. The British government has announced that it is putting into effect a plant to fast-track the autonomous vehicles.

"It's an early statement by a national government that this is a policy priority," said associate law professor Bryant Walker Smith at the University of South Carolina, who studies the legal implications of driverless cars. "I wouldn't say we've seen a similar announcement, say, by a U.S. federal agency."

The government said that current driving laws in Britain will be reevaluated to suit the driverless vehicle technology but the nation might have some international obstacles to tackle.

The 1968 U.N. Vienna Convention on Road Traffic states that every moving car is required to have an operator, and the operator must always be in control of the vehicle while in motion.

The agreement has been approved by over 70 nations, including the United Kingdom and many other countries in the continent. Some leaders in Europe have been attempting to modify it for years as they see the agreement is a hindrance to permit autonomous cars, Smith said.

Earlier this year, principal nations accepted the pleas to revise the 46-year-old treaty and changes will be implemented sometime in 2015.

Still, complicated problems such as licensing, insurance and liability of autonomous vehicles have not yet been considered.

British officials said that the reevaluation of the countries policies will also figure out the matters and will announce the outcome by the end of the year.

Japan has also been researching about driverless cars. Its government has tested a platoon of automated trucks to shorten the distance between consecutive vehicles to shorter-than-normal gaps. A line of close vehicles will reduce aerodynamic drag and will result in increased energy savings and reduced CO2 emissions. 

Tagscars, Driverless Cars, Insurance, vehicles, Accidents, roads