On the road to autonomous cars, driver fatigue will be a problem

The dream of roads filled with fully autonomous vehicles is, in the end, about safety. Properly trained and tuned AI will take human error, like driver fatigue and DUIs, out of the equation. But despite the autonomous trucks taking to the road and ride services being rolled out in Las Vegas and the Valley of the Sun, that dream of safer, fully automated vehicles zipping around in perfect harmony is still further down the distant pike -- if it arrives at all. In the meantime, especially in new cars, drivers now operate in a kind of liminal space between "let the car drive itself" and bearing full responsibility for each action these fast-moving tons of steel take. Automated driving features can have the knock-on effect of increasing driver fatigue and distraction.