It's not just Google in the driverless car business anymore. Toyota and Audi announced this week that they are moving closer to driverless cars. And Ford chairman Bill Ford Jr. has predicted the rise of semi-autonomous cars between 2017 and 2025 and fully-autonomous cars after 2025.

It's an exciting prospect to imagine cars driving themselves. But besides having this science fiction-like future where you could make a red-eye drive across the country, there are other promising benefits of driverless cars. A new infographic produced by InsuranceQuotes.com makes the case that cars that drive themselves will make drivers safer and make driving more efficient and have less of an impact on the environment.

But not everyone thinks driverless cars will bring a bright future, but instead one with more congestion, pollution, and, hey, don't we already have something where you can get someplace without driving? Oh yeah.

Still, the status quo for car safety isn't good. In the U.S. alone there are 30,000 automobile deaths each year. Put another way: More people die on U.S. roads in three months than have died in the decade-long war in Iraq and Afghanistan . If driverless cars can reduce that, they'll be worth it.

[h/t Government Technology]

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