Road-trips may take on a whole new meaning in the next few years. Rather than fighting to stay awake to keep the driver alert until the next motel, you may be able to just curl up in the backseat and let the car drive itself.

Google, as well as some automobile companies such as Audi and BMW, are working to develop the technology for self-driving and self-parking cars. Using sensors, radars, cameras and GPS, these cars would do everything that a human driver could do behind the wheel, including pass slow moving cars, stop at 4-way stop signs and regulate its own speed.  There are even plans to allow cars to better communicate with each other, which would help to prevent traffic jams. My favorite part of all this is that it would save us from the effects of rubbernecking.

Of course, there are still plenty of kinks to work out. The cars would rely heavily on GPS, which can be tampered with by hackers. There is also a concern that although the autonomous vehicles are meant to share the roads with human-driven cars, they may be too polite to compete. For example, these cars could easily get caught at stop-signs, which often just rely on people being considerate and reading each other’s “body language.” Human beings often bend the rules and it will be no small task to teach computers how to deal with that.

The legal challenges are just as complex. It is unclear who would be held responsible for traffic accidents and damages and how the police would enforce traffic laws. However, driver-less vehicles are already legal in Nevada and legislation has been proposed in Florida and Hawaii as well.

I have no doubt that once these are commonplace, none of us will think twice about entrusting our safety to vehicles on auto-pilot. But how long will it take for us to get used to the idea? I for one, am looking forward to it.