Only 21% of Americans would ride in a self-driving car

WASHINGTON, 25 July. - (ANA) - Recent fatalities involving self-driving vehicles appear to be making people nervous about self-driving vehicles. When asked in a survey undertaken by researchers at the Brookings Institution how likely they are to ride in a self-driving car, only 21 percent of adult internet users said they are inclined to do so, compared to 61 percent who are not.

The support for self-driving cars is down a bit from other surveys over the past year. For example, Northeastern University/Gallup undertook a mail survey of 3,297 U.S. adults from September 15 to October 10, 2017 and found 25 percent were likely to ride in a self-driving car and 54 percent were unlikely. In January 2018, Reuters/Ipsos completed a survey of 2,592 adults, finding 27 percent were comfortable riding in a self-driving car and two-thirds were uncomfortable.

In addition, our numbers are significantly less positive than what a May 2017 Pew Research Center poll revealed. It showed stronger enthusiasm for driverless cars, with 44 percent saying they would ride in one if given a chance, while 56 percent would not (but their analysis eliminated the “don’t know” or “no answer” response).

The Brookings survey was an online U.S. national poll undertaken with 2,066 adult internet users from July 8 to 10, 2018. It was overseen by Darrell M. West, vice president of Governance Studies and director of the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution and the author of The Future of Work: Robots, AI, and Automation. Responses were weighted using gender, age, and region to match the demographics of the national internet population as estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey.   - (ANA) -

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