Driverless Cars "Horrify" Britons

Almost half of Britons wouldn’t sit in a driverless car. Those are the results of a survey conducted by price comparison site uSwitch.com.

A total of 953 Brits were questioned and, of these, four in ten wouldn’t trust a driverless car to bring them safely to their destination, and worry those cars would jeopardise their safety, as well as the safety of others, such as cyclists or pedestrians.

Sixteen per cent of those surveyed said they felt “horrified” by the notion of unmanned vehicles on British roads.

Besides the obvious safety concerns, many have expressed worry over who would be responsible for any damages that might occur between unmanned vehicles. Who would pay in an event of a car crash?

Almost a third of those surveyed believe both the ‘driver’ of the car, and the third party should share the blame.

A quarter believed the blame is completely on the shoulders of the car manufacturer, while 18 per cent said only the driver would be to blame.

In January, driverless cars will appear on the roads of Greenwich, Bristol, Milton Keynes and Coventry with the goal of testing the impact of unmanned vehicles on the traffic.

Google’s semi-secret facility Google X, dedicated to making technological advancements, has been working on developing a driverless car for years now, and has recently sent one out into the world.

The car drove more than a thousand miles with only one crash, and in that incident, a car behind Google’s failed to break on time and caused the crash.