How do humans react to self-driving cars?

Hi,



I heard a fascinating interview on the BBC with Dr. Alan Stevens, Chief Research Scientist and Research Director, Transport Laboratory in Surrey, England, and chair of the UK”s Intelligent Transport Systems Association. He is researching how humans react to automated vehicles, as drivers and other road users and commented, “Driving is not only a technical system, so when we have an automated vehicle, it is not only a technical endeavor, it’s also a social endeavor, as driving is, so it’s the interaction of vehicles that makes the traffic work.







“One of things we could do with automated vehicles is have them travelling much closer together. We’d need electronic coupling between them, so they’d be passing messages all the time. The issue comes more when we have automated vehicles and ordinary ones, and the standard driver’s expectations of what the automated vehicle will do.







“We’ve experimented in this simulator having an ordinary driver driving next to a platoon of automated vehicles with very short headways [the space between one car and the car in front of it]and one of the very interesting findings was that the normal driver adjusts the headway of the vehicle they are following because they see the other vehicles travelling very close together.







“Now this is a very subtle effect and an unconscious effect, so it’s as if drivers look around, see what all the other traffic is doing and then subtly adjust their behavior.”



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