Although it could save lives, many of us thought the conception of a driverless self-driving car was something that we would never see in our lifetime. Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University and profound Google engineer, Sebastian Thrun, thinks otherwise.

Have you seen the YouTube videos of the Toyota Prius with a big metal array on the roof touted as Google’s self-driving car? If not, then let me enlighten you.

Google, which needs no introduction, has a fleet of automated cars that have covered over 140,000 miles of various driving conditions without having an accident. The research and development is aiming towards ultimately replacing the problems of human driving with a computer-controlled car that could save a million lives each year. Sebastian Thrun, in the video below, goes on to explain how car accidents are the leading cause of death for young people mainly due to human error instead of machine error.

It is quite possible that we will one day see self-driving cars on our local streets and highways if projects that Thrun and Google’s team continue to be successful with. Could you imagine the day people could text and drive without worrying about the grave consequences?