A survey in Pennsylvania found that many feel uncomfortable sharing the road with autonomous vehicles.
The people of Pennsylvania aren’t too keen on the idea of using the road self-propelled vehicles to share. That was the finding of a study by the New York-based opinion research company RABA Research, which was published on Thursday. When asked about their wellbeing, more than half said sharing roads with autonomous or highly autonomous vehicles was ‘uncomfortable’.
A few months ago, the US state passed a law that allows the industry to test their autonomous vehicles here. No personnel has to be on board for the tests. So far, the law has only been approved by the House of Representatives, but it must also be ratified by the Senate. This should happen in the fall.
Rejection is evenly split between Republican and Democrat voters. 60 percent said they would support policies that advocate people in test vehicles. At the same time, 64 percent did not know that Pennsylvania even wanted to introduce such a law.
The bigger the car, the more uncomfortable the respondents felt. 38 percent would agree if they were autonomous small cars. For trucks, approval fell to 17 percent. The question of job losses due to autonomous driving is also viewed critically.
Testing of autonomous vehicles – even without on-board personnel – is permitted in various US states. However, different provisions apply in each case. Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania is to become a central location for development. Uber had already carried out its tests here. aurora and location are testing autonomous trucks in the city.