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The idea of a 42-ton lorry with no one at the wheel looming in your rearview mirror is pretty terrifying. 

But we had all better get used to it because driverless juggernauts could be on Britain's motorways within ten years, experts predicted yesterday. 

And the trucks look like being the forerunners of a robot revolution. 

According to the Royal Academy of Engineering, artificially intelligent robots and computers capable of making life and death decisions will become more and more common in all aspects of life. 

The academy wants a public debate about the social, legal and ethical issues raised by the increasing use of 'thinking' machines such as surgeons, soldiers, babysitters, therapists, carers for the old and even sex partners. 

Their report, called Autonomous Systems, explains how the computer-directed trucks would use data from laser-radar, video cameras and sat-nav to steer through traffic and pedestrians. 

Report co-author Professor Will Stewart, of Southampton University, said driverless lorries and cars would make motoring far safer.

'The machine is a perfectly safe object. It is not prone to some of the things that you and I are prone to,' he said. 'It can run 24 hours a day without getting tired and it will always do the same thing.' 

He said the technology is already in place for driverless cars and robotic taxis that take passengers to any destination are likely within 20 years. Fully automated trains are already in use on London's Docklands Light Railway and a driverless taxi that can do 25mph on a network of narrow roads will be launched next year at Heathrow. 

Professor Stewart said automated vehicles would be most useful for haulage, adding: 'I think in ten years 30 per cent of trucks could be machine-operated.' Their computers will be programmed to predict the behaviour of other road users, to slow down safely if other vehicles get too close and to learn from their mistakes.

If a lorry detected a mechanical or software fault it would pull over and radio for help. 

Professor Stewart added: 'It will always give way to other vehicles and people could begin to exploit that by cutting in. 

'The first person likely to be killed by an autonomous vehicle is probably going to be a driver who is chancing it.' 

However, the report admits there could be huge legal problems if an automated car were in an accident.