Most people in Connecticut are aware of the seemingly great rush on the part of automotive manufacturers and technology companies alike to further the emergence of autonomous vehicles on American roads. No longer are these companies content to simply add some self-driving features in human-driven vehicles. Instead the vision is to have completely self-driven vehicles a normal part of life across the country.
For some time, consumers have showed different levels of concern about this change but as more reports of accidents involving autonomous vehicles have surfaced, the willingness of the average American to trust these cars may be waning when manufacturers need it to go the other way.
The Washington Post reported on the results of three different surveys that show some differences in attitude percentages but do all corroborate the big picture point that American consumers are far from ready to accept autonomous cars as safe. One study by AAA even shows that among the millennial generation, a group expected to be the first to accept self-driving vehicles, willingness to ride in them has dropped in the past six months. Currently it states that 64 percent of people in this age group would not ride in these vehicles.
An HNTB study does show that overall, fewer than half of consumers would be willing to ride in a driverless vehicle even though 70 percent believe these vehicles will be commonplace in as little as 15 years. This study indicated that millennials viewed self-driving cars controlled by computers and other technologies as safer than those driven by their human counterparts.