Statistics show that a large number of automobile injuries and fatalities occur as a consequence of human errors. This calls for the need of principles related to safety engineering and an intelligent communication system that can significantly reduce the probability of the occurrences of these accidents. This paper surveys the same idea in terms of autonomous vehicles. These are driverless or automatic vehicles that are designed and programmed in such a way that they can sense the surrounding environment and move possibly without any human or external interference. This paper constructively surveys the need for such a system, environmental challenges and constraints it could face, different communication scenarios, and finally the risks that autonomous vehicles can pose in short and long term