Driverless Futures: A Survey of Public Attitudes, 2021-2022

A set of surveys of public attitudes to issues around self-driving vehicles. Our major sample is from the UK public, with a smaller US sample and a small group of expert respondents for comparison.

Background
The prospect of self-driving vehicles on our roads has attracted considerable public attention, and private and government investment. As vehicles have started to be tested, it has become clear that their interactions with other road users and broader social implications are complex and potentially controversial. The need for governance is becoming clearer. Questions of how safe the technology needs to be, who is likely to benefit and who should be making decisions are becoming ever more important.

At the end of 2021, we surveyed a sample of 4,860 members of the British public to capture their opinions on self-driving vehicles. The survey was part of Driverless Futures? (driverless-futures.com), a project funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council, with researchers from University College London, UWE Bristol and City, University of London. Our questions were derived from a set of more than 50 expert interviews and a programme of public dialogue that identified key issues for governance of the technology.

Most surveys of public attitudes towards self-driving vehicles have addressed respondents as potential users or consumers of the technology. Our survey is different. We address our respondents as citizens, to ask them how they wish to see the future of mobility.

Our respondents all answered most of the survey questions before being divided into five groups for modules on specific topics relating to self-driving vehicles. On some matters our respondents return a clear consensus; on others, opinions are diverse. The range of sentiments include excitement and scepticism about the benefits, the safety, and the wider impacts of introducing self-driving vehicles.

We have also fielded this survey in the US (N=1,890) (data collection in February and March 2022) and deployed a shortened version for a convenience sample of 'experts' (N=80).