No thanks, Google - I'd rather walk

I have to start off by saying that I'm a complete and utter petrolhead. So when word got out that, in the not-so-distant future, cars would be driving themselves, I must admit I was more than just a little sceptical.

I hardly get into a car with someone else at the wheel and now Google wants me to be okay with no one at the wheel. Why not just hop on a train, bus or taxi? You must be thinking this could be an effective solution in countries with proper public transport systems - and you're right. But the sad thing is that it would be those first world countries that would have Google's driverless cars on the roads - not SA.

Even though I might not like the idea of driverless cars, I still think it is the next logical step in the tech-transport evolution. It's also inevitable that Google would be the first giant international corporation to bring this futuristic dream to life.

I actually think we should have expected this sooner. Google, being the innovative giant it is, was the first to combine technology that already exists. There are cars that can park themselves, prevent you from killing yourself on the road, and keep you in your lane. And if you take the built-in GPS and onboard computer into account, it can pretty much talk to you as well - making the Knight Rider dream that much more of a reality.

Technologies like collision prevention, the Intelligent Parking Assist System, as well as the lane departure warning system have been with us since the early 2000s, but the idea for a completely driverless car is not solely one of Google's incubations.

In February, German motor manufacturer BMW announced it is developing an electronic co-pilot system in collaboration with Continental. The system would support highly automated driving and BMW claims it would be ready to implement by 2020.

The German manufacturer has placed a massive amount of emphasis on safety and a vision it calls "Vision Zero (Accident-Free Mobility)" and "Safety for All". Obviously, safety is not the driving factor behind this project, as BMW also wants to improve convenience and efficiency.

"With our vision of highly automated driving, we are already developing the technologies and methodologies for a range of cutting-edge driver assistance systems. Partially automated driving functions of the near future, like the Traffic Jam Assistant, will mark an important step on the road to highly automated driving," says head of BMW Group research and technology Christoph Grote.

BMW already tested its version of a driverless car in 2011, when the vehicle underwent a public road test on the motorway between Munich and Nuremberg - with no driver at the wheel. BMW claims the car, which continues to undergo improvement, braked, accelerated and overtook other vehicles entirely autonomously, while at the same time always adapting to the current traffic situation and adhering to traffic rules.

In the meantime, approximately 10 000 test kilometres have been clocked up with this prototype. What makes the BMW driverless car even cooler is that it is being used for research projects like BMW's TrackTrainer.

Based on a fusion of highly accurate digital maps, GPS and video data, the BMW TrackTrainer can navigate vehicles around racing circuits fully autonomously, following the ideal "racing line". In 2009, the system was used to automatically guide the car round the N"urburgring North Loop, in Germany. And in 2011, the BMW TrackTrainer was demonstrated at the Laguna Seca Raceway, in California. So BMW's self-driving car would be smart and fast, which is perhaps even scarier.

Google has been trying hard to get laws in place to allow the use of driverless cars on public roads. And it has been successful in the US - of course. The state of Nevada passed a law in 2011 permitting the operation of driverless cars, with the law coming into effect in March last year. The first licence for a self-driven car was issued in May last year.

In April 2012, Florida became the second state to allow the testing of driverless cars on public roads, followed by California in September that year.

While there are still many uncertainties and concerns about Google's plans to rid cars of drivers, the search giant's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, seems confident about this transport revolution.

Schmidt spoke on BBC Radio 4 last month and said they had driven hundreds of thousands of miles without any accidents. "When you get in the car, it's really shocking. You press the button, it's turning by itself, it's changing lanes, it's dealing with the traffic ahead of you and slowing down.

"They say it takes 20 minutes for the driver to recover from the feeling of being driven by the car rather than you driving the car."

But how soon could one get their hands on a Google car? That's the question on everyone's mind, except mine. Schmidt said they are still busy testing a whole bunch of cars they've modified to drive by themselves. "We are trying to figure out how safe it is, what the issues are. The technology uses a very sophisticated laser so we can see things faster than you can as a human driver and we can react quicker. Of course, we have to make sure we see it right and we can tell the difference between a policeman who is telling you to stop, and a tree."

And just when you thought Schmidt might have convinced you to throw away your keys and take naps on the back seat, while Google drives you to work, this statement followed: "If you think about humans driving, it's amazing that we let humans drive at all. There are so many things going on at once and yet humans do a pretty good job."

But then again, Google knows best, doesn't it? "We have also had the benefit that we drove on a lot of the roads in the world with our mapping activities, so we have extremely accurate maps of the world and we have extremely good vision from these lasers that we've invented," explained Schmidt.

The Google car is more of a reality than a dream at this point, but would I give up the pleasure of getting behind the wheel of a beautifully engineered Italian sports car to have some computer with lasers drive me around? No thanks, Google - I'd rather walk.