Driverless cars may soon be in our the future.  The technology is still in its early days, but it’s being developed at blistering speeds by both private corporations, such as Cadillac, and academic researchers. The car of the future will not only be self-driving, it’ll also be closely networked with other cars to ensure that accidents and other problems will be limited in how much damage they do and or eliminated altogether.  Even the roads themselves will be more intelligent with networked traffic signals dynamically adjusting signal timing as traffic flows through roads and intersections.

All of which raises the question: Will this make the driver’s license a thing of the past?

Yes and No

Some believe that drivers’ licenses will be gone as early as 2040.

But for the time being, such a change is nowhere in sight. Right now, the laws on the books allow driverless cars on the road, but somebody with a license has to be behind the wheel at any given moment. Part of this is simply the fact that these laws aren’t a blanket license for all driverless cars, but rather laws that allow companies to test driverless cars for benefits and drawbacks. These cars need as much road time as possible to refine the technology.

But could that change in the future? It’s true that automakers are fascinated with driverless vehicles, partially because driverless systems could be used to streamline the parts of driving that are the riskiest and most annoying. Even if the driverless systems aren’t implemented, they lead to new safety measures: Back-up cameras and collision warning sensors are two technologies that came out of driverless technology work.