You’re stuck on the highway. Bumper to bumper traffic. A commute that should have taken a few minutes has now somehow become an hour-long endeavor.

When this happens, we all have one of two thoughts…

One, Monster truck…

Or two, I wish I could just fly over this mess.

Great news. Some of science’s greatest minds are saying we already have them…

“We already have flying cars. They’re called helicopters.”

Well, that’s not quite what we meant, Neil.

But let’s find out how the science fiction of the flying car we all know and love may be closer than you think to a science reality.

Sci-Fi has long imagined that flying cars would zip around unencumbered by traffic.

In Star Wars, Blade Runner and the Fifth Element, flying cars just seem right.

“Coming out of the garage, it’s an automobile on its way to a hangar to become and airplane.”

While flying cars once seemed inevitable, they haven’t quite caught on yet, even though inventors have been trying for decades.

Now, companies like Uber are developing airborne ride-sharing, but the infrastructure and regulations don’t yet exist to support it.

But maybe flight isn’t our only solution to traffic.

“For you men who are always late to the office, we have this built in auto-shaver.”

What we’re really looking for is “found time”. That’s where sci-fi’s been way ahead of us with the self-driving car.

“Self-drive on.”

“May I suggest you put the car on auto-cruise mode, for safety sake?”

“No, you may not!”

The self-driving car may soon be a common reality.

Google, Tesla, Ford, Uber and others have been developing self-driving cars for years.

Cities including Paris and Beijing are testing self-driving cars on the road, and Waymo has released a fleet of truly driverless taxis in Phoenix, Arizona.

The cars use sensors and complex algorithms to navigate, and to avoid collisions

But problems have cropped up with some test projects, including crashes, a pedestrian death, and even violence towards the cars, which could be typical road rage or the quirks of interacting with AI…


“I’m Johnnycab. Where can I take you tonight?”

…which Sci-fi also predicted.

So the next time you’re feeling that road rage…

Take a deep breath. Inhale, exhale. And know that the flying cars are coming soon