be added to old cars for around $100 to $200, raising the possibility that insurance companies might some day pay the cost in the same way they reduced premiums for cars with back-window brake lights.

Grimm and other auto designers say technology is being developed for cars to take over the steering to avoid crashes in a country where more die on highways every month than died on 9/11 and where there are 800,000 side-panel collisions a year.

Cruise control has been around since the 1970s. BART has been driving trains automatically for 30 years, and since the mid-1990s most jumbo jets have landed themselves.

"The original intent at BART was driverless trains," said spokesman Linton Johnson, acknowledging that train operators are there to reassure the public and to keep an eye out for unforeseen problems. But electric relays, using 50-year-old technology, space the trains and adjust their speeds, not drivers.

"If you have a perfect landing, the pilot didn't land it. The computer did," said Ron Wilson, an aviation consultant to ABC-TV and a veteran pilot. He explained that the CAT-III landing system continually beams signals between the cockpit and landing strip to calculate time and distance.

Safety features in cars are just the start. Another firm, Chicago-based Navteq is demonstrating its mapping system, which over a wireless system tells cars of speed limits, upcoming hazards, sporting events, available parking, patches of black ice or rain and even potholes and cool restaurants.

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