Back to the Future day has come and gone but we’re still waiting on some of the technologies we were supposed to see by now, at least according to Doc Brown. Where are our hover boards? How about those self-sizing jackets?

While neither of those are on our radars, one futuristic technology we’re seeing more of in the news lately is the autonomous, or self-driving, car. Sounds like a great idea, right? We can be like George Jetson and finally have someone do our driving for us. Less accidents and less traffic both sound like positive outcomes we might see from self-driving cars. So why aren’t they here yet?

Listen in as Kevin King, counselor from Cline, King & King, discusses just what we need to see before we see self-driving cars on a broad basis and what the timeline looks like. Talking with John Foster on WCIS 1010 AM in Columbus, IN, King reviews some subsystems we’ll see standard in today’s cars leading up to the self-driving cars including: Automatic Emergency Braking, Lane Departure Warnings, Pedestrian Detection Systems, and Vehicle-to-Vehicle Communication. He also discusses the need for Human Factor Analysis and requirements that we’ll see from National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on these futuristic cars.

Listen to the full audio and get all of the details of King’s discussion:

What do you think? What do we need to see in self-driving cars to keep ourselves safe?

Want to hear more talks from Peter and Kevin king? Tune into WCIS 1010 AM Columbus, IN the first and third Friday of every month for People’s Law Talk.