75% Of Drivers Say They Wouldn’t Feel Safe In An Autonomous Vehicle

Would You Feel Safe In An Autonomous Vehicle?

  • Yes

    Votes: 42 48.3%

  • No

    Votes: 24 27.6%

  • Sure! Once humans have been banned from driving.

    Votes: 21 24.1%
  • Total voters
    87
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Let's see how these poll numbers compare to you guys. Would you feel safe in a totally autonomous vehicle? Frankly, I think autonomous vehicles will be perfectly fine once humans are no longer allowed to drive. So, until that happens, my answer is "no."

AAA’s survey of 1,800 drivers found that 75% of drivers[PDF] say they wouldn’t feel safe in a driverless vehicle. But it’s worthing nothing that 60% said they would like access to some kind of self-driving feature, like self-parking, lane departure warnings, adaptive cruise control, and other options the next time they buy a new car.
 
While I want to say yes, something tells me I'd be flipping out for the first 6-8 months. It's a huge paradigm shift and one I'd have to get used to. I love it, but I'd be a paranoid backseat driver for a while.
 
If you think that autonomous cars will soon be a reality than call me; I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell. Also I have some prime real estate in the Florida Everglades that is a really great investment.
 
It's kind of a loaded question.
Would i feel safe in these prototypes or first generation commercial autonomous vehicles? Not particularly.
Would i feel safe after several years and many early adopters have tried and tested it extensively? Yes. I figure by then, any shortcomings would have been figured out and corrected.
Asking drivers right now if they would feel safe in it would assume that it would be one of the prototypes and of course the answer is no. They're not available for sale nor are they even allowed in most areas.
 
In many ways, I see the "No" from our society coming from a couple of different mentalities:
1) The fear of losing control due to the hyper-independence our culture is established upon. This also morphs into the fear of Big Brother controlling aspects of your life, whether that Big Brother be a government or a corporation.
2) The fear of the unknown. Everyone is at least vaguely aware of how dangerous cars are, even if they don't know cars are the MOST dangerous form of transportation. Given that danger, it is easy to see how risky it seems to place that area of our lives into the hands of a perceived "untested" and "unknown" entity. Why should I trust it? What basis do they have to stand on to be trust worthy? I don't see any of my friends using it, so why should I?
 
A better question would be would you feel safe if everyone else was in an autonomous car instead of driving themselves?
 
So I bought a new truck with Adaptive Cruise Control. I can drive damn near across town without touching the brake or accelerator. It is SCARY AS HELL...but it works near perfectly. It just scares the hell out of me.

Relaxed driving even in heavy traffic: Active Cruise Control with Stop&Go function keeps you at a constant distance from the vehicle ahead at all times. If the traffic comes to a halt, the system applies the brakes until the vehicle comes to a standstill and then automatically moves on as soon as the road is clear.
Click to expand...
 
I don't feel safe with 75% of the drivers on the road now! Just swap one for the other.
 
I'll probably feel safe enough, unfortunately oftentimes I get nauseous if I'm not the one driving. So... probably will be of questionable use in my case.
 
I would probably only use it on the highway, but man would it be great to just watch a movie or something just cruising. I would probably be a little weary for the first few times though.
 
No. Autonomous vehicles will have a limited range for detection of issues, other vehicles, etc. I may be more mindful than most, but I tend to scan well ahead of the "next" car while driving, and can anticipate issues well before they happen. And like the Google car that crashed into a bus while trying to avoid sandbags, I really don't want a computer making the decision for me which is "safest."
 
I chose option 3. That being said, I don't want to live in a world filled with robot cars. My summer car is 2014 Mustang GT and my winter car is a 2010 Audi Quattro because I enjoy driving. So if Google could wait until I'm dead to make the world an even more boring place to live, that would be great.
 
I don't even feel safe with OTHER people with autonomous cars, let alone myself.
As far as programming them for all circumstances. NO WAY. Here is an example it will never happen. Try to program this from engineers that most likely barely know how to drive themselves.
 
Could autonomous vehicles really be any more dangerous than what we currently deal with on the road? If we could only get the distracted drivers off the road and into autonomous vehicles I feel the road would be a lot safer for the rest of us.
 
I would like to see a day when there are NO cars at all in big cities. Autonomous buses sure. Cars in the city seems like such a waste and backwards in the world we live in now. More progress is needed in the public transportation sector, where's the innovation?
 
I answered truthfully, that I wouldn't feel safe until humans were banned from driving. That being said, I enjoy driving and hope the day never comes that I can't drive myself.

Then again, I am not stupid and I know that if I live long enough I will probably reach a point where I need to trade in my steering wheel and gas peddle for a CPU.

I just don't see any reason to hasten the day.
 
Zigmorph said:
I would like to see a day when there are NO cars at all in big cities. Autonomous buses sure. Cars in the city seems like such a waste and backwards in the world we live in now. More progress is needed in the public transportation sector, where's the innovation?
Click to expand...

Maybe we could leave all the cars in big multi-story parking garages out at the edge of the city. If it gets really useful people will reduce the number of cars they buy. I imagine if public transit was good enough a lot of people would be fine sharing cars or renting. That actually seems like a good idea.
 
lcpiper said:
I answered truthfully, that I wouldn't feel safe until humans were banned from driving. That being said, I enjoy driving and hope the day never comes that I can't drive myself.

Then again, I am not stupid and I know that if I live long enough I will probably reach a point where I need to trade in my steering wheel and gas peddle for a CPU.

I just don't see any reason to hasten the day.
Click to expand...
I think the obvious solution would be not to ban human driving, but keep raising the requirements in order to have a license. So in the future if you're someone who really wants to drive, the tests you would have to pass would be closer to what's expected of a professional driver (passing many cone tests, defensive driving scenarios, etc.).
 
Zigmorph said:
I would like to see a day when there are NO cars at all in big cities. Autonomous buses sure. Cars in the city seems like such a waste and backwards in the world we live in now. More progress is needed in the public transportation sector, where's the innovation?
Click to expand...

One of the many reasons I'll never live in a big city. And if they ban cars completely, I won't even want to visit :)
 
Quix said:
Maybe we could leave all the cars in big multi-story parking garages out at the edge of the city. If it gets really useful people will reduce the number of cars they buy. I imagine if public transit was good enough a lot of people would be fine sharing cars or renting. That actually seems like a good idea.
Click to expand...

If I had a self driving car, would it be allowed to drive with nobody in the car?
It could take me to work (I have a short commute), and then go back home for when the wife needs it during the day. It could then come pick me up after work.
Also, if self driving taxis where cheap enough, I really wouldn't need a 2nd car.
 
nutzo said:
One of the many reasons I'll never live in a big city. And if they ban cars completely, I won't even want to visit :)
Click to expand...

Yeah I hear you... I'm working on a way I can work remotely so I could live out of the city... Won't miss the boardroom meetings, office politics, sales politics, entertaining out of town clients... Etc...
 
tetris42 said:
I think the obvious solution would be not to ban human driving, but keep raising the requirements in order to have a license. So in the future if you're someone who really wants to drive, the tests you would have to pass would be closer to what's expected of a professional driver (passing many cone tests, defensive driving scenarios, etc.).
Click to expand...


Why? Humans don't generally cause accidents because of their inability to maneuver their vehicle, that effects their ability to avoid accidents. Distracted driving, driving while sleepy or under the influence, these are big factors causing accidents. The US already knows we screwed up when we designed our long straight Interstates, they literally bore people to death. We have since learned that Germany's approach with their autobahns is much safer as the beautiful curving highways are designed to present ever changing vistas and demand that the driver pay attention. Add in their higher speed limits and the fact that German drivers stay to the right and always allow passing or they get ticketed and you have several factors that make driving their much safer. That being said, when Germans do have a wreck it's frequently the last one they ever have. Of course, Germans don't usually make two and three day journeys like we do here in the US.

And this brings me to ask a question. How many of you find that having a companion who will keep you engaged in conversation makes the drive fly by and seems to keep you more alert and less likely to snooze?
 
In order of how safe I feel depending on who's driving.

1. Myself
2. Autonomous car
3. Someone else
 
I like to try and avoid hitting jaywalkers, what would a self-driving car do in that situation?
 
I just don't think we have the technology yet. Think of the issue where a google car hit a bus because it was trying to avoid sandbags. Human beings can use judgement. Computers follow algorithms. It will take years of development and advances in AI before I'd be ready to ride in a self driving car.
 
rezerekted said:
I like to try and avoid hitting jaywalkers, what would a self-driving car do in that situation?
Click to expand...

That's where the autonomous cars would excel the best, for they are constantly observing the surrounding areas, watching everything that is moving, and judging how to react accordingly. Not only will they act, they will act much faster than a human is capable of doing. You don't think they have jaywalkers in San Jose or San Francisco during their 1.3 million miles of experience?
 
I would feel perfectly fine. It probably already drives better than 99% of the population, including myself.
 
pgdeaner said:
I just don't think we have the technology yet. Think of the issue where a google car hit a bus because it was trying to avoid sandbags. Human beings can use judgement. Computers follow algorithms. It will take years of development and advances in AI before I'd be ready to ride in a self driving car.
Click to expand...

Actually, Google feels the same way. In a wired article from January, Google says it's not as good as humans yet. They are down to what equates to one crash-likely incident every 74,000 miles which required human intervention to prevent, but it's still not good enough. Following the recent bus incident, Google said they changed their algorithm to take into account the fact larger vehicles can't slow down quickly, and thus won't likely slow down at all for someone trying to merge. Interesting that it took over 1 million miles for this info to be added to the logic.
 
ccmfreak2 said:
Actually, Google feels the same way. In a wired article from January, Google says it's not as good as humans yet. They are down to what equates to one crash-likely incident every 74,000 miles which required human intervention to prevent, but it's still not good enough. Following the recent bus incident, Google said they changed their algorithm to take into account the fact larger vehicles can't slow down quickly, and thus won't likely slow down at all for someone trying to merge. Interesting that it took over 1 million miles for this info to be added to the logic.
Click to expand...
With the amount of variables involved in driving, not surprising at all to be honest. It is a very interesting development though.
 
I still want a Tesla so I can have autopilot. I do not trust self driving cars at low speed but on the highway sure. Since that is mainly just lane changes and small turns. After watching the Youtube videos of autopilot, it looks like it works good enough for me.
 
At this point I'm more worried about folks impaired by a substance or distracted by a device then I am about a google mobile. The google mobiles would make a great punishment for those who choose to make the roads a dangerous place for the rest of us. I wish they would start yanking licenses of those who txt and drive. It's scares me to walk down Main Street and see that half of the drivers are looking down at their damn phones. Hell, we had a guy plow into a kid on a crosswalk in front of the elementary school with the traffic guard there during drop off time. He was checking his phone......
 
I foresee massive lawsuits against the manufacturers of these cars because now people will be able to blame the car for the accident and not the driver.
 
Prod1702 said:
I still want a Tesla so I can have autopilot. I do not trust self driving cars at low speed but on the highway sure. Since that is mainly just lane changes and small turns. After watching the Youtube videos of autopilot, it looks like it works good enough for me.
Click to expand...
Such half-measures are likely more dangerous, imho. Someone may feel they can do other things and its safe. Since there is no longer something pulling their attention as hard, they will be motivated to do other things at the same time.
 
There seem to be a lot of people that are trusting self driving cars only tested at 25mph and below. Are you willing to only go 25mph no matter where you go with these cars? Have fun with that.
How do you think human drivers would compare if we were all limited to 25mph? No speeding possible. I'm betting humans would be far better at judgement than a computer would. I would bet that a human would rather hit a sandbag than a bus... If a sandbag is all it takes to make a computer wreck into another vehicle the size of a building... LOL. Just imagine if it put the google car in front of it instead of the side? Umm, no. You know sandbags are common in work zones and temporary signs? It seems a lot of people don't value their life much, nor for others who know self driving cars are a bad idea. Sad.
 
Well since over 3000 people a year die on the roads here in Texas, and yes mostly drunk, I would think that a self driving car to get home from the bar at night is quite sensible. I once drove my Dad home when I was 10 and he was drunk, we made it just fine and at 10 I doubt that I drove as well as a self driving car today. :eek:
 
rezerekted said:
I foresee massive lawsuits against the manufacturers of these cars because now people will be able to blame the car for the accident and not the driver.
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They did the same thing with cruise control. By that logic we shouldn't have that either.
 
ShagnWagn said:
There seem to be a lot of people that are trusting self driving cars only tested at 25mph and below. Are you willing to only go 25mph no matter where you go with these cars? Have fun with that.
How do you think human drivers would compare if we were all limited to 25mph? No speeding possible. I'm betting humans would be far better at judgement than a computer would. I would bet that a human would rather hit a sandbag than a bus... If a sandbag is all it takes to make a computer wreck into another vehicle the size of a building... LOL. Just imagine if it put the google car in front of it instead of the side? Umm, no. You know sandbags are common in work zones and temporary signs? It seems a lot of people don't value their life much, nor for others who know self driving cars are a bad idea. Sad.
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The tesla will already drive at highway speeds without human input. And what's this "it will crash into a belaz because of a sandbag? You base your conclusion on your own FUD. Are you sure that's wise?
 
M76 said:
Where do you get this 25Mph crap? The tesla will already drive at highway speeds without human input. And what's this "it will crash into a belaz because of a sandbag? You base your conclusion on your own FUD. Are you sure that's wise?
Click to expand...
But the Tesla is far from an autonomous car; it only has driver assistance technologies. So it'll drive at highway speeds by itself, so long as it sees the markings and doesn't need to change lanes.
 
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