Americans are warming to the idea of riding in self-driving vehicles, although they’re still wary of sharing the road with them. While a majority of U.S. drivers still say they?re afraid of riding in a fully autonomous vehicle, a new AAA survey finds that fewer are expressing those fears than in previous years.
Sixty-three percent of motorists tell the organization that they?re uncomfortable with the idea of ceding all control to a self-driving system. That?s down from 78 percent during an identical survey released in March 2017, and the reduction in 15 percentage points equates to a rise in trust of roughly 20 million licensed drivers, says AAA. This is the third consecutive year the organization has conducted a survey that provides a snapshot glance at driver attitudes toward advanced driver technology and autonomous vehicles. The change portends good things for automakers and tech companies hoping to launch limited commercial services, in some cases as early as 2019. Beyond engineers developing competent self-driving systems and lawmakers creating a regulatory climate that welcomes these cars, consumer acceptance is a central component in that push toward autonomous travel.
?It?s not making a car that drives itself and removing the steering wheel that?s the hard part,? says Grayson Brulte, a consultant developing automated-vehicle strategies and co-chair of an autonomous-vehicle task force set up by the city of Beverly Hills, California. ?It?s convincing the publ...