We were talking at some small length about the possibility of this happening over dinner tonight, and then I come home to find this article in my feed reader–Google’s been experimenting with self-driving cars. There was a theory being tossed about at the table tonight that even if vehicles like this were to actually see common use, there’d probably be some version of regulation in place that says the driver (DO they even call them drivers if the car mostly drives itself?) would have to be able to assume manual control in an emergency. The article seems to confirm that, as Google was quick to point out there were always two people in the test vehicles at all times–one to assume control if need be, the other to make sure the software did what it was supposed to. Still, the fact this is being tossed about is rather kind of nifty. Even if that still very likely doesn’t mean I’ll actually be getting behind the wheel of one of those any time soon. And, bonus, they’re already drawing comparisons between this and the “Night Rider” series. It pays to read a bunch of geek blogs.