Self-driving cars may get here before we're ready

New York

SOMETIME in the future - although no one quite knows when - your morning commute may look something like this: Open an app, summon a car and wait for the arrival of a driverless vehicle that will whisk you to work like a ghost chauffeur.

For many of the carmakers and technology companies gathering at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, the big question is not whether such an event could become a reality, but whether we are ready.

The short answer: We are not.

"The technology is really advancing faster than we had originally anticipated," said Steve Hill, the director of the governor's office of economic development in Nevada, the first state to pass legislation allowing driverless cars to be teste…