Americans Still Deeply Skeptical About Driverless Cars, Says Poll (theverge.com)

A new poll was released today that basically repeats data we've seen in previous surveys: Americans still don't trust self-driving cars, and are nervous about the coming onslaught. The Verge reports: Asked how concerned they'd be to share the road with a driverless car, 31 percent said they'd be "very concerned," while 33 percent said "somewhat concerned," according to the poll which was just released by Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety. A majority (63 percent) said they would not support "mass exemptions" from federal motor vehicle safety standards for self-driving cars, and were not comfortable (75 percent) with automakers having the power to remotely disable vehicle controls, such as the steering wheel, and brake and gas pedals, when the autonomous vehicle is being operated by the computer. And people overwhelmingly support (75 percent) the U.S. Department of Transportation developing new standards related to driverless vehicles. The poll surveyed 1,005 adults between December 7-10th, 2017, with a margin of error of +/- 3.09 percent.

Comments

Re:Safer than humans

[Hadlock]

When I think hyper paranoid, I'm thinking of a very specific incident.
 
I'm on castro street, which is the main resturaunt drag in Mountain View, about 6pm, peak hour. Getting ready to cross the street at the crosswalk to go to the train station. I'm standing on the sidewalk, about 2' from the curb, facing away from the street talking to them. We decide it's time to go, so I spin around on my heel so that I am facing towards the crosswalk/street. At this exact moment there's a break in traffic and the next car is one of the "cute" white waymo electric cars. I hear the tires chirp, and there's a surprised expression on the attendant's face. At this point the car has come to a complete stop, about 15-20' (one car length) ahead of the crosswalk. I hadn't started to walk in to the street/crosswalk yet, just spun in place.
 
Now, this tells me a few things
1. The car knew I was there. I've almost been run over IN that same crosswalk by inattentive drivers in the span of 18 months.
2. The car was tracking my motion and making assumptions about my intent
3. The car decided my motion passed a certain threshold and decided to take evasive action.
 
Keep in mind this is a very busy intersection, it's a 3-way T car intersection, plus a crosswalk, and no less than four outdoor seating areas for resturaunts, plus rush hour sidewalk traffic. Easily 100+ people in a 50' radius around the car. I was partially obscured by no less than two other tall people on the sidewalk.
 
But the car saw me moving what it thought was erratically, made the call and stopped, rather than risk slowly bumping in to me.
 
  That might seem unremarkable, but I've had two human-driven cars back in to me while walking through a parking lot, I've been turning left at a stop sign, and a (Very exhausted) hospital nurse came to a stop, then drove in to me in the intersection, I've had cars not see me in the crosswalk and drive in to me when their light turns green. I was a good 15' away in this instance and the car chose to stop rather than risk any contact with me. Yes, that's hyper-paranoid, but didn't delay anyone getting to their resturaunt, nobody was late getting home and more importantly nobody died that day (even if this would have been minor at worst).
 
So yeah, I'm pretty happy with how they've designed these things, sure they're a bit more careful than the average human, but what I've seen at that intersection previously, humans are awful at piloting cars, especially when tired/hungry/distracted.