Living in Los Angeles with its famous traffic, I find myself with a great deal of time on the road letting my mind wander. In between crawling traffic lanes I often think about the day past or an upcoming weekend adventure. But most recently, given a plethora of news on the subject, I've filled my head with thoughts of a not so distant future — a commuting utopia where each vehicle streams along in unison to their destination, set by their owner but not driven by them.

I wasn't always this way. In my hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico, there are only two freeways, I-25 and I-40, and they perfectly intersect each other in the heart of the town with simplicity and ease. Traffic rarely stops flowing, and I’d make a good bet you can get anywhere in town within 15 minutes. Contrast that to Los Angeles, a city proper with three times the size, and thus three times the traffic.

So after moving here last summer, I had to quickly adapt myself to a lifestyle where traffic is a way of life. People cut me off. They drive too close. They zoom and weave in between traffic. They merge at the last second. They text, eat, and play the flute while they drive (yes, seriously). It was a big change, so much so that I bought Tom Vanderbilt’s best selling book “Traffic: Why We Drive The Way We Do” looking for an answer.

But in a driver-less world, none of these things would matter. There would be no driver distractions, significantly fewer fatal crashes, no road rage — just the hum of vehicles transporting the people inside them in harmony. This probably sounds too good to be true. But we are closer than ever to making it a reality. Just last December, Google released a working prototype with plans to test drive it in the Bay Area this Spring. Nissan is aiming to offer driver-less cars to consumers in just five years. Uber is heavily investing in the technology. And when a mysterious tech van registered to Apple was seen driving in San Francisco, rumors swirled that even the famous Cupertino company could be in on the project. So, in my commuting dream state, I’ve asked myself an interesting question — what would a driver-less world look like?

First and foremost, traffic flow would be much different. To understand why, you must enter the world of traffic engineering and planning. You’ve likely encountered a random slow down or dead stop while on a freeway. This is the result of the “slingshot” effect — a driver has switched lanes at the last second, merged at an inconvient time, randomly slowed down or stopped due to an accident — causing all drivers behind him to apply brakes, and so forth, leading to a wave of brake lights that slows traffic until it catches up again. There is also the “funnel” effect. Imagine dripping water through a funnel and watching it flow right through. Now imagine pouring a tub of water into the same funnel and watching it back up. The more volume, the more backup. The same is true of traffic.

Driver-less cars may not fully solve the funnel effect, but they will undoubtedly solve the slingshot effect. These vehicles will have planned the most efficient route, using their software to determine precisely the right time to exit, merge, switch lanes, etc. They will communicate with one another constantly. I’m not convinced accidents will be eliminated but they will be rare now that driver error is removed.

Secondly, freedom on the road will take on a whole new meaning. Cars have long been viewed as an expression of freedom and indivduality, especially in America. We have phrases like the ‘open road’ and images of a packed convertable zooming down the road with wind snapping at our backs as our summer daydream. Remove the need to pay attention to a steering wheel, or speed, or staying in the lines, and the possibilites become endless. Passengers in a driver-less car could play games, watch movies, and use their phone and tablet to their heart’s content. They could sleep and eat. They can drive any time of the day or night, now that driver fatigue is no longer an issue. In a world where social interactions are taking a backseat to technology, the close, intimate space of a stress free vehicle could re-energize relationships. Perhaps even literally — the ‘mile per-hour club’ anyone? (This depnds how tinted the windows will be of course). A driver-less car would define good technology in any sense of the phrase, because it would truly make our lives easier and more convienent.

There would be many questions in a transition from our current vehicles to driver-less cars. The psychology behind driving would change. Would anger now be directed at the car instead of other drivers? How reliable will the software behind these vehicles be? I imagine many will be skeptical of a car that operates itself, as is the case with most self-operating technology, but that will change as we become more comfortable with an automated world. What about the car insurance industry? These are only a few questions to come as driver-less cars become more and more mainstream. To think such a big transition would be easy is simply naive.

Lastly, it would be hard to mention self-driving vehicles without mentioning those individuals who depend on driving for a living. It’s very possible that self-driving big rigs would still require a human monitor given the importance of the cargo. And high class transportation services such as celebrity limos may feature human chaffeuers “manning” the front, if only out of tradition. But taxi drivers, airport shuttle drivers, bus drivers, and the like will see their jobs vanish before them in a world that no longer renders their skills useful. That is sad and harsh. But perhaps that is the price we pay, and indeed history shows it to be true, for better technology.

But back to today’s realty. Now, in 2015, we continue to plop ourselves in our driver dependent cars, filling them with gas, cursing at other drivers under our breath, avoiding the weavers and the last-second-mergers of the world in collective unison. I will leave work today and take on the crawling traffic of Los Angeles like usual, daydreaming of the day when stress-free efficiency takes control of the road.

Any other time in history, I’d probably frown in hoplessness of such a reality. But now, I smile behind the confidence of one of the greatest words when it comes to waiting — “soon.”