Most Motorists Think Self-Driving Cars Are 'Dangerous': Poll

In a recent poll conducted on behalf of Autotrader.com it was discovered that most car owners are not big fans of self driving cars. In the study 65% of respondents said that they felt autonomous vehicles are “a dangerous idea.” The same respondents also felt that safety was more important, and even though most of the respondents disliked the idea of a car driving themselves full time, they still indicated that they would buy a car with features that helped a driver avoid accidents. Many of these feature such as automatic collision avoidance, parking assistance, and active cruise control are very helpful to drivers, and despite them being similar to autonomous cars, still seem very popular. This is important because it implies that drivers want some of the helpful features provided by intelligent cars, but are still unwilling to give up control of their car.

My best guess for the response in this survey is that many people are unaware of how autonomous cars would work, and have imagined fears of them being unsafe. Despite the current safety statistics of the autonomous cars by Google right now, there still seems to be a majority of people that do not trust a car to drive itself. I think the issue is that many people think they are better drivers than they actually are, and think “I can drive better than a computer.” This is a problem because we aren't actually better than a computer in many aspects, and sometimes it is very important to admit that something is better than oneself. I personally feel that this idea will become the biggest thing that self-driving car manufacturers will have to overcome when bringing their cars to the market. If a majority of people think that self driving cars are dangerous it will be very hard for them to catch on and get laws developed allowing the use of them.

To me, the most interesting part of the article is that 65% of people actually think that self-driving cars are more dangerous. I personally think that this speaks to the unfamiliarity that most people have with developments in the tech world, which will be a serious problem for every future tech development that comes forward and has controversy. Without people being familiar with tech developments they will not be properly informed on what is happening, and thus would not be able to make informed decisions, which always leads to problems. I personally would love the idea of self driving cars as they would make life simpler when driving long distances, but would be against all sorts of cars being outlawed. This isn't because I feel that they are “more dangerous”, but rather because I feel that driving is a fundamental part of the American way of life, and I would not like to see that happen.

Overall, I feel that this poll brings up problems with the development of self-driving cars because the fact a majority of car owners believe them to be dangerous is definitely a significant issue that will have to be overcome.

http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/innovation/most-motorists-think-self-driving-cars-are-dangerous-poll-n250491