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People Are Losing Faith In Self-Driving Cars Following Recent Fatal Crashes (mashable.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the cause-and-effect dept.

oldgraybeard shares a report from Mashable: A new survey (PDF) released Tuesday by the American Automobile Association found that 73 percent of American drivers are scared to ride in an autonomous vehicle. That figure is up 10 percent from the end of last year. The millennial demographic has been the most affected, according to the survey of more than 1,000 drivers. From that age group, 64 percent said they're too afraid to ride in an autonomous vehicle, up from 49 percent -- making it the biggest increase of any age group surveyed. "There are news articles about the trust levels in self-driving cars going down," writes oldgraybeard. "As a technical person, I have always thought the road to driverless cars would be longer than most were talking about. What are your thoughts? As an individual with eye problems, I do like the idea. But technology is not as good as some think."

The Mashable article also references a separate study from market research company Morning Consult "showing increased fear about self-driving vehicles following the deadly March crashes in the Bay Area and Arizona." Another survey from car shopping site CarGurus set to be released Wednesday found that car owners aren't quite ready to trade their conventional vehicles for self-driving ones. "Some 84 percent of the 1,873 U.S. car owners surveyed in April said they were unlikely to own a self-driving car in the next five years," reports Mashable. "79 percent of respondents said they were not excited about the new technology."

3 of 446 comments (clear)

  1. Amazing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How many crashes happen every day because of humans? Yes I know it is sad, no one wants bad things to happen. But in the long run this is going to save far more lives than take.

    1. Re:Amazing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm pretty sure that no commercially available so-called self-driving options can do much more than lane-following, adaptive cruise control (including coming to a complete stop) and possibly obstacle-aware lane changing.

      Speaking of Tesla, at least, it can only "self-drive" on roads with lane markings i.e. no dirt roads. There is no recognition of stop lights, stop signs or other indications of actions needed to be taken by the driver. It will update speed limits as you're driving so you're aware of them but that's about it. I'm not including here anything not related to driving e.g. self-parking, summoning etc.

      Honestly anyone who doesn't think of self-driving as a future promise at this time needs to have their heads examined. Just looking at the problem space, one would realize that we've only dipped our toes into this pool.

  2. Good by mccalli · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There is way too much starry-eyed magical thinking about tech in general at the moment. AI this and machine learning that...you would think people's day to day interactions with their phone assistants would get people to quickly understand things are still fledgling, but apparently not.

    I'm in favour of developing the technology. And very, very much in favour of not overhyping it to destruction.