Self-Driving cars don't sound so crazy anymore do they?
Bottom Line: Anytime research about self-deriving cars comes out I think about the day Jeff Bezos floated the idea of drone delivery of products. The two are very similar concepts in the mind of the collective. Several years ago when Bezos mentioned he envisioned drones delivering products to your home or office - he was immediately mocked by the masses for such a silly concept. I took the other view. At the time I mentioned that he was brilliant, not crazy. He knew it would take time for Americans to get used to the idea of drone delivery and wanted to start the conversation so we'd begin to get used to the concept. He even had a timeline in mind. 2020. The FAA has long had a 2020 timetable for the consideration of issuing guidelines for commercial drone delivery. Whether you like the idea or not - it's likely not a crazy sounding concept anymore is it? Fast-forward to self-driving vehicles. Different version of a similar thing.
At the advent of the Google technology equipped in a Prius driving a blind man around San Francisco several years ago I mentioned the same thing. Not only would self-driving cars be a part of our future but eventually would likely endanger your ability to drive yourself. As we know us human types are prone to errors (with over 98% of auto accidents being the result of human error) and computers, while not perfect, are often far more reliable than we are once the technology is near-perfected. The implications in auto-safety are enormous. With that as the backdrop we now have the latest research that shows just how much more used to the concept we've become.
AAA just conducted their latest, and now annual, survey of self-driving vehicles and we've seen another year of much greater acceptance. According to their findings...
- 63% of Americans are afraid of self-driving vehicles
Now, while that sounds negative...It's actually meaningful progress for the technology. That's a 15% improvement year over year so just as I suspected it's happening. Just as drone delivery isn't generally perceived as crazy talk...We're on our way towards a similar path with self-driving technology. It's likely that by the time we've reached the potential for critical mass in self-driving cars (mid-next decade) - it'll be a normalized concept (that's probably a lot safer than the average person behind the wheel).