According to AAA, drivers should know if they are sharing the road with a self-driving test car.
In a new release issued Friday, the automobile association said regulators should establish guidelines to identify self-driving vehicles so human drivers, bicyclists, and pedestrians are aware of them.
AAA said a survey the organization conducted with the Technology and Public Purpose Project at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs found that most drivers have concerns about sharing the road with self-driving cars. More than half the drivers surveyed (53 percent) felt less safe sharing the road with self-driving semi-trucks, while nearly half (47 percent) felt it was less safe sharing highways with self-driving vehicles.
Drivers in the survey said their concerns would ease if they knew they were on the road with self-driving vehicles. Nearly two-thirds (62 percent) said they would feel safer if the self-driving vehicles were clearly marked, while 60 percent wanted designated lanes for self-driving vehicles. Less than a third (31 percent) said they would feel safer if self-driving vehicles were restricted to certain times of the day or days of the week.
Currently, AAA said, 38 states and the District of Columbia have active self-driving test pilot projects in operation. Some are highly publicized, the organization said, but others are not. Researchers found that only 35 percent of U.S. drivers know that some states allow self-driving test vehicles are allowed on public roads. Of those surveyed, 34 percent favor the self-driving pilot programs, while 36 percent oppose them. Thirty-one percent said they were unsure about the programs.
Among those opposed, 77 percent said they had concerns over the safety of sharing the road with self-driving vehicles, 62 percent had concerns over who would be responsible for crashes with self-driving vehicles, and more than half were concerned about the need for the public to know about how to behave around self-driving vehicles.