The idea of autonomous cars roaming the streets is something that appears ever closer on the technological horizon. Many companies are taking strong looks at bringing this tech to the streets, and the automakers are lending a hand with the software developers.

Still, we're at least a decade or more away from taking a nap or reading the paper while being shuttled to work by your iCar.

It's not just the technological hurdles that are holding us back at the moment, however, because we happen to live in a very litigious society. There will be accidents, but the question will quickly become whose fault was the accident? Who is on the hook here?

The automaker built the car, the driver technically wasn't driving, and the software developer created the smart tech inside. There's still a lot of legal issues to be sorted out before autonomous cars are running down the road.

This is why, according to The Detroit News, China will become the first major market for such vehicles. China isn't a society that's jam-packed with lawyers on every corner. There's less barriers to entry for the autonomous way of motoring. It's definitely something that's going to happen too, it's probably just not going to happen with the United States being the primary market.

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