Poll finds public wary of driver-less cars

As some of the world’s biggest companies invest millions of pounds in developing the driver-less car, a new poll commissioned by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers revealed that 56 per cent said they would not be happy to relinquish the controls of their car, compared with just 20 per cent of those who would.

Among drivers in the North, 58 per cent said they would not be happy while 21 per cent said they would.

People in Wales and the South West were most against the technology (60 per cent) while those in the South East were least likely to object (52 per cent).

The findings follow announcements from companies such as Google, Ford, Mercedes Benz, Audi and Volvo that they are investing hundreds of millions of pounds in developing driver-less cars in moves which could redefine how people travel in the future.

The poll of 2,038 people showed that women were more wary of the new technology, with 61 per cent saying they would not use a driver-less car, compared with 50 per cent of men.

Older people were the most sceptical about driverless cars – only 13 per cent of 55 to 64-year-olds backed driverless cars, as opposed to 31 per cent of people aged 25 to 34.

Philippa Oldham, head of transport at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, said: “These findings clearly show that people in Britain are not convinced of the benefits of driver-less technology.”

Driver-less cars, or autonomous vehicles as they are officially known, use techniques such as radar, GPS, and computer vision to sense their surroundings and control navigation paths of vehicles.