Human beings have a strange way of taking new technology and finding ways to use it for sex. We got cell phones and almost immediately started having phone sex and sexting; through remote control devices we developed teledildonics, so we could make each other cum across vast distances; from video chat came cam-girls and interactive porn; from VR came virtual reality orgies and from robotics we’ll soon have android prostitutes. It’s an all-too-predictable pattern.

And, according to British academics, with the advent of connected and autonomous vehicles (CAV’s), or “driverless cars”, we’ll soon see sex workers hitting the road, using this new technology to bring prostitution into the modern age.

That’s right, CAV’s aren’t just going to make the highways safer. They aren’t just going to make it less stressful and more efficient to get from point A to point B, they’re also going to free up a lot of windshield time, that would have otherwise been spent operating the vehicle, or talking to your driver. And idle hands (as they say) are the Devil’s playthings…

Academics from the universities of Surry and Oxford recently published a paper that imagines all the wild and wonderful ways in which CAV’s are expected to upset the status quo of the road once they’re here. They postulate that driverless cars will compete with some hotels, as more people start to simply sleep in cars that drive around aimlessly until the sun rises; they predict that CAV’s will reduce the need for public transport, train travel and driven taxis; and they even speculate briefly on the potential for these cars to be used in terror attacks.

But the real nut of these predictions is about road-sex. They speculate that these cars will become roving brothels – hotel rooms on wheels you can order up like an Uber, that will arrive with your escort ready-to-go.

“This might include questions of how prostitution, and sex more generally, in moving CAVs, becomes a growing phenomenon,” the report, published in the Annals of Tourism Research, says. “For instance, ‘hotels-by-the-hour’ are likely to be replaced by CAVs, and this will have implications for urban tourism, as sex plays a central role in many tourism experiences.”

Which, makes sense. Without the need for drivers, these cars will eventually, essentially just be private passenger pods – with more than enough head and leg-room to get tangled up with some sexy stranger. Throw in some tinted windows and maybe a little bit of sound-proofing and CAV’s will be like little sex studios that double as modes of transportation – love shack taxi cabs.

They also open up the potential for drug use. After all, you aren’t behind the wheel – what’s stopping you from popping some champagne, sparking up a blunt and cutting up a couple of lines? The chances of your driver getting pulled over for making a mistake are pretty slim, after all.

Of course, there are measures that could be thought up to prevent these kinds of illicit activities. Cameras, smoke sensors, and other technologies could be installed in CAV’s to combat this. But even the report admits, “While SCAVs will likely be monitored to deter passengers having sex or using drugs in them, and to prevent violence, such surveillance may be rapidly overcome, disabled or removed.”

And, realistically, CAV providers who are operating a sex services out of their vehicles aren’t going to be spending a lot on security measures to prevent sex or drug use within them. They may even advertise that as a selling point: “No cameras, no drug detection devices, no worries!”

So how long do we have? How long before you can order up an autonomous taxi, complete with a hot date, a bed of rose petals and a bottle of bubbly?

It’s hard to say. CAV’s aren’t expected to really take to the road until 2020. But, by 2040, some estimates say that 95-percent of all vehicles sold will be fully autonomous. By then, you can bet that places like Las Vegas will be offering CAV escort services. What they're price tag will look like, though, is impossible to predict.

But what is certain, is that CAV’s are on track to make transportation a whole lot more exciting…

Let’s just hope they’re easy to clean.