California, Nevada, and Florida have already made driverless cars street-legal, and continuing advances in the technology have led many to predict that the commercialization of automated vehicles is a real possibility in the not-so-distant future.

As driverless vehicles become more commonplace, it is important to understand how humans interact with this new technology.

"With an almost exponential increase in the development of new technologies for driver assistance and support in vehicles, the topic of this special issue seemed very appropriate," said Guest Editor Natasha Merat.

"The issue brings together research results on the effect of automation in vehicles on human factors and driver behavior and provides a valuable collection of papers from North America and Europe outlining the most recent research in the area."

The research in this issue represents a range of topics, including in-vehicle warning systems, driver-system interaction, user experience, and drivers' willingness to accept and trust smart cars. The following is a sampling of articles included in the special issue.

+ "Fatigue and Voluntary Utilization of Automation in Simulated Driving"

+ "Driving With a Partially Autonomous Forward Collision Warning System: How Do Drivers React?"

+ "Sharing Control With Haptics: Seamless Driver Support From Manual to Automatic Control"

+ "Trust in Smart Systems: Sharing Driving Goals and Giving Information to Increase Trustworthiness and Acceptability of Smart Systems in Cars"

"Rapidly developing vehicle technology will likely change driving more in the next five years than it has changed in the previous fifty, and understanding how drivers will respond to these changes is critical," said Guest Editor John D. Lee.

"This special issue offers the first collection of papers on highly automated vehicles with a focus on how technology will affect drivers and provides a view into the future of driving."

The Human Factors special issue on automation, featuring the latest articles on designing automated vehicles with the driver in mind, is now available online. The October 2012 issue may be found here