Safety Perceptions of Self-driving Cars: A Survey Study in China and Pakistan

The most critical concern with respect to the development of driverless vehicle technology is its safety and reliability. Inadequate technological advancements may lead to serious implications especially in terms of loss of human life. Moreover, technological advancements bring socio-technical complexities where the role of human, being the key element of a system, becomes highly important. Benefits of advanced technologies in driverless vehicles cannot be realized properly if safety related concerns have not been appropriately addressed in the design process. One possible way forward is to get feedback from the users of technology and incorporate design requirements accordingly. For acquiring the necessary information on various safety related issues that might be faced by the drivers, this public opinion based survey study has been conducted in China and Pakistan which mainly aims at capturing the public reliance level, perceptions and expectations on driverless vehicle system, more specifically on safety related issues. A web-based survey, containing some general questions about safety especially under some given driving scenarios, was launched in both the countries. The survey findings provide a useful insight for stakeholders towards user’s expectations, their safety perceptions and differences in the level of trust on modern vehicle technologies between the people of an emerging economy (China) and low-income country (Pakistan). The results also direct towards the need for further exploration of safety related concerns so that the issues could be addressed pragmatically during the design process.