Half of U.S. adults assume self-driving cars are more dangerous than traditional vehicles operated by people, while almost two-thirds said they would not buy a completely autonomous vehicle, according to a new automotive opinion poll.
In the same poll, about 63% of those who responded said they would not pay extra money to have a self-driving feature on their vehicle.
The poll results define the challenges that face automobile manufacturers, delivery companies and ride services operators such as Uber Technologies Inc and Lyft Inc. All are plowing capital into developing self-driving cars. Developers of the Tech are making progress, but polls point out the industry’s efforts to build public trust and commercial demand lag behind.
The findings are almost like those during a 2018 “auto” poll. they’re consistent with results in surveys by the PEW research facility, the American Automobile Association, and others.
In March 2018, an Uber vehicle operating in self-driving mode struck and killed a pedestrian in Arizona.
Relatively few people have seen or ridden in a self-driving vehicle, and specialists stated suspicion of unknown technology can give way to acceptance as soon as it becomes more familiar.
“People feel safe with things they know,” stated investor Chris Thomas, co-founder of Fontinalis Partners and Detroit Mobility Lab. “When everybody is familiar with the game-changing attributes of self-driving vehicles, how they can give you back all that time to read, work or sleep, they will begin to ask about the value of that recaptured time and all the benefits self-driving cars can give you.”
For companies investing in autonomous vehicles, public mistrust and the unwillingness to pay for self-driving cars are an increasingly urgent problem.
But the widespread deployment of totally self-driving cars is some years away. Alphabet Inc’s Waymo unit has deployed a small fleet of self-driving trucks to grant rides for customers in Arizona, and other businesses have self-driving cars on public streets for a test.
“At the instant, these responses are generally based on zero knowledge and zero experience, so it’s usually a visceral reaction to something they examine, just like the 2018 Uber crash in Arizona,” Spokesperson of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California.
Autonomous automobile companies have been attempting for more than two years to get the U.S. Congress to enact a law that would give a regulatory green light to self-driving cars.
On Capitol Hill, a bipartisan effort to pass legislation to set cybersecurity and other requirements for self-driving cars failed during the previous Congress.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration meanwhile has yet to act on proposals to exempt autonomous cars from conventional automobile safety standards.
Two-thirds of survey respondents stated self-driving vehicles need to be held to higher government safety requirements than normal automobiles driven by humans.
2019 Reuters/Ipsos poll
- 64% of Americans stated they would not buy a self-driving car.
- 67% stated self-driving vehicles must be held to higher safety requirements than traditional cars.
2019 AAA Poll
- 71% of U.S. drivers surveyed would be afraid to ride in a completely self-driving vehicle.
2018 SADD/State Farm Survey
- When asked to rate how safe they would feel riding in a totally autonomous car on a one-to-five scale with one being least secure and 5 being most safe, 55.6% of high school students polled stated 1.
The challenges of turning over essential safety systems to robots are now a central problem in the debate over how regulators have to respond.
The increased chatter about self-driving cars (AV) means only one thing: sooner or later, self-driving vehicles will become a reality. As with any new tech, some inherent resistance exists, even if it is not backed by reliable data.
