Crashes seem to be souring consumers on self-driving cars

In the wake of several high-profile crashes involving autonomous vehicle technologies — including a recent one in Utah — a new report from AAA shows that consumers’ perception of the technology has slipped. Today, almost three-quarters (73 percent) of American drivers report they would be too afraid to ride in a fully self-driving vehicle. When AAA asked the same question in a survey released in January, 63 percent of drivers said they were afraid. 

The South Jordan crash of a Tesla Model S did not involve a driverless vehicle, but the driver had turned her car over to an autopilot feature while she engaged in texting.

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AAA believes self-driving cars have the potential to revolutionize transportation safety around the world, where a million people are killed every year in traffic collisions. But the technology must be implemented safely in order to keep the public’s trust, according to John Moreno, manager of public affairs for AAA Utah and six other states, including Nevada, where AAA is sponsoring the nation’s first self-driving vehicle available to the public in downtown Las Vegas.

“Despite their potential to make our roads safer in the long run, consumers have high expectations for safety,” said Greg Brannon, AAA’s director of automotive engineering and industry relations. “Our results show that any incident involving an autonomous vehicle is likely to shake consumer trust, which is a critical component to the widespread acceptance of autonomous vehicles.”

Surprisingly, AAA’s latest survey found that millennials — the group that has been the quickest to embrace automated vehicle technologies — were the most impacted by these incidents. The percentage of millennial drivers too afraid to ride in a fully self-driving vehicle has jumped from 49 percent to 64 percent since late 2017, representing the largest increase of any generation surveyed. 

AAA is surveying riders in Las Vegas to gauge how their perceptions of the technology change after a firsthand demonstration. As of May, over 23,000 people have taken a ride on the free shuttle. Early results from the yearlong pilot show a 30 percent increase in positive sentiment toward self-driving cars after riding on the shuttle, Moreno said. 

“Consumer education is a key part of this effort, because people sometimes fear what they don’t understand. It’s always better to show rather than tell,” Moreno said. “When we demonstrate this shuttle to the public, we’re explaining how this technology works and how it benefits them. Taking that first ride makes all the difference in how people feel about the future potential of self-driving cars.”

When AAA first polled consumers about the self-driving technology in 2016 and later in 2017, a full 75 percent of Americans reported feeling afraid to ride in a fully automated vehicle. That percentage rose to 78 percent in early 2017, but fell to 63 percent in early 2018, with many pointing to a rising public trust in the technology.

In addition to the Las Vegas shuttle, AAA Northern California has several other partnerships and projects to learn more about self-driving technology: GoMentum Station in Concord, California, the state’s largest test site for self-driving cars, and Torc Robotics, a Virginia-based autonomous technology company. {/mprestriction}