Cars of the future will be fitted with "shocka seats" that give drivers a jacksie jolt every time they shout at cyclists "oi, you don't pay road tax". Actually, cars won't need to be so equipped because the most dangerous component on the car – the loose nut behind the steering wheel – could soon be eradicated. Manually driving a car may become a quaint, how-we-used-to-live museum piece, with an animatronic Jeremy Clarkson explaining what a clutch was.

When all cars are self-driving, equipped with light detecting and ranging (Lidar) and 360-degree cameras, there will be no more "sorry, mate I didn't see you". And the autonomous car will also know when it's unsafe for the "driver" to exit: so dooring of cyclists will be history.

In a world with cars that don't kill, taxis without cabbies, and HGVs driven by computers not blindspot-afflicted drivers, there will be less need for hard infrastructure. Many bicycle advocates believe we've started on a Dutch-style 40-year trajectory to getting segregated cycle paths almost everywhere, but driverless cars will be here long before that.

That's one vision of the future. A more dystopian one involves platoons of speeding robocars making roads even more deeply unpleasant and motor-centric than they are today. Pedestrians and cyclists may have to be restricted "for their own safety." After all, if you knew that the truck barrelling towards you would automatically brake if you wobbled out in front of it, you'd have little incentive to stay in the gutter and every incentive to play one-sided chicken. Claiming the lane would take on a whole new meaning as cyclists blithely blocked robovehicles. The authorities would be under immense pressure to stamp out jaywalking – and jaycycling. With cars able to speed through junctions, electronically interacting with each other, and with no need for traffic lights, it would be harder for humans outside of driverless cars to use the roads.

If you think all of this is science fiction, think again. A report from KPMG and America's Centre for Automotive Research concludes that driverless cars will be with us "sooner than you think". Google has been working on the tech for nearly five years, and its test cars have driven 500,000 miles on the public roads of California. Google co-founder Sergey Brin said last year: "You can count on one hand the number of years until ordinary people can experience [driverless cars]."

What's more, an Oxford University research team is developing retrofittable driverless car tech said to be much cheaper and simpler than Google's Lidar-based system. Nissan chief executive, Carlos Ghosn, gushed at this year's Frankfurt motor show: "In 2020 all the problems that we have in allowing autonomous driving will be solved." The talk of the show was the autonomous journey of an S-Class Mercedes which auto-drove 65 miles, from Mannheim to Pforzheim in Germany.

What will this mean for cyclists? Driverless car consultant Brad Templeton, who worked with Google on its autonomous car project for two years,

sees a future where some form of cycling prospers:

"Cycling could be great for commute times. Many commuters might be happy to get a ride to the outskirts of the [central business district], but as they enter the congested zone, have their car drop them off next to a bike for a quick ride to work."

And the promise of driverless cars probably won't cure traffic congestion. Instead, it's highly likely that more journeys will be made, quickly negating any benefit.

And more and more journeys will mean the clogged roads of today will be remembered as comparatively empty. There will be pressures to speed up the traffic using more and more tech, and perhaps pressure to restrict the freedom of cyclists and pedestrians.

Or – spinning the futurology dice again – there could be more space for cyclists because the accurately driven robocars and semi-robocars of the future will be able to stick to very narrow virtual lanes, freeing up space for cyclists and other modes of transport.

CTC's Roger Geffen told the Guardian:

"It is hard to tell what driverless car technology would do for cycling. It might lead to vast improvements in cyclists' safety, eliminating the risks from those who drive aggressively, irresponsibly or just without paying attention.

Then again, if pedestrians and cyclists can run or swerve out in front of cars knowing they will stop, some people will doubtless take advantage of this. That would infuriate drivers, leading to calls for jay-walking and on-road cycling to be banned altogether. Cycling's very survival would then be wholly dependent on getting comprehensive, high-quality segregated cycle networks built. Either way, we need to start thinking through the implications of driverless cars."

And we'd better start thinking soon. Driverless cars will be tested on the public roads of Britain by the end of this year, says the government,

although it may take 30 to 40 years before the roads of Britain are fully populated with driverless cars. In the meantime, legislators could lean on the EU's new car assessment programme to make sure every new car is equipped with the sort of cyclist and pedestrian detection technology that Volvo has had since 2010.

If cars no longer kill us we will be able to use the roads again without fear. Bike paths? Where we're going we won't need bike paths, as Dr Emmett Brown might have said.