THE internal combustion engine started life as a frightening and dangerous beast that required a man to trot in front of it with a red flag. Today, a car no longer even needs a man at the wheel.

Technology has reached a watershed with the launch in Japan of the first self-steering car, which will be in British showrooms next year.

Drivers will be able to sit back and allow the “automatic chauffeur” to follow the motorway and safely keep its distance from other vehicles.

Honda has beaten rivals to be the first to offer the system outside Japan, which it claims reduces the stress of long journeys. “This has been in development for five years,” said Graham Avent for Honda UK. “It will be available from next year on some models and could be standard across all model ranges within 10 years.

“We see it as a way to reduce the human error involved in an accident and it could be the biggest step forward in driver safety since the airbag.”

The car will stay between the white lines with the help of a tiny camera behind the rear-view mirror that scans the road and feeds signals to a computer behind the dashboard. If the vehicle strays, an electro-mechanical system gives a nudge to the power steering.

The car also has a cruise control system that keeps it at a steady speed unless the vehicle in front brakes. A radar sensor concealed behind the radiator grille tells the car to slow down.

To make sure they do not fall asleep, drivers must keep contact with the steering wheel. If they let go for more than 10 seconds, a warning sounds and the system shuts down.

Known as Adas (advanced driver assistance system), the autopilot will come as standard on Honda’s £35,000 Legend and as a £2,000 option on its £22,000 Accord. The Accord is due to be launched in Britain in January, the Legend next summer.

Several manufacturers including Mercedes, Lexus and Jaguar offer automatic cruise control. By incorporating automatic steering, Honda has taken another step closer to the driverless cars of sci-fi movies.

The Sunday Times tested the system last week at speeds of up to 80mph on Honda’s Takasu test track in Hokkaido, northern Japan. On bends the steering wheel nudged gently clockwise and anticlockwise as the car corrected itself and negotiated the angles.

“Even through curves at 80mph, the steering wheel gently and unobtrusively makes corrections to maintain position,” said Ray Hutton, who drove the car for The Sunday Times. “You can take your hands off the wheel completely and watch it in operation, although only for 10 seconds.”

The system is designed so that the driver remains in ultimate control. “[The system] is not intended to replace the driver,” said Shinnosuke Ishida, who led the team that designed Adas. “Our aim is to reduce the driving load and prevent accidents caused by driver fatigue.”

Honda’s automatic steering system works only between 45mph and 112mph and on wide radius bends — the sort of conditions usually found on motorways.

If the bends are too tight or the road markings suddenly run out, the system closes down and the driver is warned to take control. The radar-assisted cruise control works only at speeds above 20mph.

Vauxhall, the British subsidiary of the American car giant General Motors, is hot on Honda’s heels with a system that could be used to manoeuvre a car through city traffic at speeds of up to 30mph.

It has cameras that can recognise objects as well as road markings and steer to avoid them so the car can drive in city centres, but it will not be ready for another five years.

“We already have a working test system,” said Craig Cheetham for Vauxhall. “The challenge now is to reduce it in size so that it can fit onto the dashboard.”

Rolf Jensen, a Danish motoring consultant, believes the driver’s days are numbered. “As the driver you’ll pretty much be out of business,” he said. “Automatic steering, speed control and distance-keeping from vehicles around you will become the norm.”

A Volkswagen Touareg that drives without any human assistance has already been built by Stanford University for a project sponsored by the US defence department, which is preparing for a future in which wars are fought by robots.

In the end, it is likely to be legal issues that constrain the extent to which technology takes over. Motor manufacturers do not want to be held responsible for collisions that drivers blame on the car for failing to steer or stop.

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