Survey: public not keen on driverless trucks

Updated Nov 7, 2014
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The autonomous Mercedes Actros that global truck maker Daimler exhibited this summer in Magdeburg, Germany.

The general public may not be as open to autonomous or “driverless” trucks as fleets may be, if a recent survey is any indication.

Nearly two-thirds of respondents to the survey from SoftwareAdvice.com said they’d feel either “much less safe” or “less safe” sharing the road with “driverless semi-trucks.”

A majority of those polled didn’t change their answer even “if it meant a cheaper consumer products or reduced carbon emissions,” according to the survey.

The safety concerns of sharing the road with autonomous vehicles also seems to be aimed more at trucks than cars, according to the poll, as fewer respondents said they would feel “less safe” with autonomous cars on the road. About 35 percent said they would feel “much less safe” sharing the road with autonomous cars, compared to the more than 50 percent who answered the same for autonomous trucks.

Click here to see more on the SoftwareAdvice.com survey.