That's about to change.

He'll soon be able to tell whether we're sleeping or texting or doing other things unrelated to driving. Which isn't the bad part.

BMW just publicly revealed their new camera-based driver monitoring system. It is called Extended Traffic Jam Assistant and will be available in the 2019 X5, the company's best-selling mid-sized SUV.

The assistant is part of what's styled Level 2 automated driving tech. The 2019 X5 can drive itself – including steer itself – without the driver touching anything – all the way up to just under 40 MPH. But for obvious reasons – including legal liability reasons – BMW doesn't want to leave it entirely up to the X5 to drive itself.

Well, that's not exactly accurate.

The driver is still expected to pay attention to his driving – even when he's not the one actually driving the car.

But if the driver is supposed to pay attention to driving, shouldn't he just . . . drive?