Why most drivers don’t want autonomous cars

[FrodosPet]

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/techflash/2016/05/drivers-dont-want-self-driving-cars-uber-google.html

Annie Gaus - May 23, 2016, 9:44pm PDT

Companies like Google, Uber, Lyft and Tesla may be racing toward a future of automated vehicles, but public opinion hasn’t warmed to the idea of driverless cars.

According to a study by University of Michigan, 43.8 percent of drivers surveyed said they didn’t want any automation at all in their next vehicles.

The study, which measured attitudes toward varying levels of automation (‘fully self driving’, ‘partially self-driving’, and ‘no self-driving’) found that only 15 percent of respondents would want a fully self-driving vehicle as their next purchase. Meanwhile, 39 percent said they would prefer a vehicle that has some self-driving features.

~ snip ~

A feeling of concern over self-driving vehicles ticked slightly upwards since 2015, according to the survey, with 37 percent saying they would be "very concerned" about riding in a completely self-driving vehicle as opposed to 35 percent last year. Older drivers were more turned off by self-driving cars than their younger peers, but even among 18 to 29 year olds, only 18 percent said they wanted an autonomous car.

~ snip ~

[Duckhunter935]

1. Bet they like cruise control

[FrodosPet]

2. Some people do, some people don't

I've known a few people who NEVER use it.

I was a fan, as I hate traffic tickets, and the speed has a habit of creeping up on me. But I have had passengers get mad at me for using it.

Achieving 100% autonomous operation on 98% of travelable pathways 99+% of the time is still several years away. Achieving majority support for the control-less Google concept is much further away than that.

[Chan790]

68. Public support is the red herring of the discussion.

When self-driving cars come...it won't come because the public supports it, it'll come because the technology will have sufficiently advanced to the point that it's substantially-safer (for people) and less risky (for insurers) than human-controlled cars.

At that point, expect the insurance industry to bring an all-out blitzkrieg and rally every disparate ally they can find to restrict back usage of human-controlled cars on most rapid time-frame they can achieve combined with internal policy changes of the industry. ("We'll insure your Google Car for just $400/year...you want to be able to drive yourself, that'll be $10,000/year.&quot They've already had industry discussions on tactics for when the day comes; those talks started soon after Google started their self-driving car project.

It'll go a lot like the effort in the mid-1980s to change laws to mandate seat-belt usage...at the time, something like 9% of Americans supported those efforts. When they come for your privilege to drive...it'll be a bloodless coup that will be over before the public can so much as think they need to resist or have a say at-all in the matter.

[frazzled]

13. I hate cruise control

I've used it only a handful of times, when my foot has gotten numb after hours of highway driving, and then only for a couple of minutes to wiggle my foot out. I just feel like I don't have full control of the vehicle unless my foot is on the gas pedal. And on most even moderately heavy highway traffic, one needs to adjust one's speed quite frequently anyway to keep a safe distance from the car ahead. (Plus, I'm a pretty devoted passer on the highway, so I frequently have to speed up to do so, and I don't like to go from no foot to all foot.)

I can often tell when a driver is on cruise: they're either going slightly faster than the traffic ahead and ending up tailgating dangerously till the last minute, or they're stuck at a few miles below the flow of the traffic and causing backups or long strings of passing.

My husband loves cruise control, but I'm always feeling like I have to backseat drive when he's using it (watch out, you're getting way too close to that car that's going slower than you!). To each his own, I guess. I'm just not a good candidate for a driverless car. I hate driving anyway, and do it less and less each year. Driving in the city, where I live, is hell: between the taxis, the bicyclists, pedestrians, construction, and other crazy drivers, I feel like a nervous wreck usually.

[FrodosPet]

15. That is an advantage of adaptive cruise control

It can help keep you at a safe distance from the car ahead of you.

[cherokeeprogressive]

47. Just bought my Wife a 2016 Toyota Highlander. The first time I was on the freeway...

I thought something was wrong with the cruise control. The car kept slowing down for no reason, so I thought it was kicking off. It was bouncing some kind of signal off of the car in front of me, and slowing down (with brake lights on so people behind me noticed) to match its speed. I found out a while later I can actually adjust my comfortable distance between cars. So I can set it for 75, and when there are no cars in front of me; that's how fast it will go... until a slower car pulls in front of me. When they move out of my lane, back to 75.

Nice.

[moriah]

57. I envy you...

I love cruise for long drives with few people on the road, but...

Sounds like they've done good with this!

Of course, I am old fogie enough to think there is a danger in devices that allow for drivers to (most of the time) be able to be fine driving despite not paying full attention to the road. I have my phone interfaced with my car and I can make and receive calls without having to take my hands off the wheel, which I love. But it also has made me more willing to talk while driving than I ever was with just an earpiece headset. Is the safety of at least keeping my hands and eyes on the road worth the distraction of talking vs using all my brains to drive?

Though I do absolutely LOVE audiobooks, and my Fire Phone's ability to read to me over tbe car speaker then pick back up in my e-reader just where it stopped.

[RebelOne]

59. I hate it also.

I don't feel like I have complete control of my car.

[LisaM]

76. I have a friend who uses cruise control

As her passenger sometimes, I feel nervous. I find her less immediately responsive to freeway traffic than drivers who don't use it.

[Trust Buster]

3. Unless you are vision impaired. But who cares about them, right ?

[FrodosPet]

5. I care about them

I want them to be in a vehicle that is SAFER than a human-driven car. That is why I am studying LiDAR and other critical technologies, until the smoke practically comes out of my ears.

[Trust Buster]

6. I care about them as well. Self driving cars will open up the world to millions of visually impaired

[FrodosPet]

11. Yes, they will

But they are not ready for primetime yet. And they will be a very expensive boutique item, as the demand from people financially able to buy them is going to be small for quite a while until they prove themselves safe over a long period.

And even when they ARE safer than an experienced, middle aged human driver, people still like to drive. We are a control freak species.

[Trust Buster]

12. I don't believe they're in the foreseeable future either. They're still very much in the development

stage. Electric powered cars has taken decades to reach acceptance, both technologically and culturally.

[Jesus Malverde]

18. There is a whole shift in car ownership.

city car share and zip car for example. Many people use these services instead of the hassle of buying a car. Many of these autonomous cars will not be available for sale to customers. It will be a license like the software model. Obviously doesn't work for rural areas but it's fine for cities.

[Trust Buster]

31. I believe the market itself will lead to self driven cars. As a higher percentage of our population

are represented by older citizens, demand for solutions to freedom of travel will only increase.

[Hortensis]

32. Very interesting. Would self-driving cars have an

override function for driving in certain areas. ??

As for the speed of transition, once it starts my guess is it will be very quick in many areas, the more affluent the quicker -- just about as quick as experiencing the difference between relaxing, chatting, reading, keyboarding in transit and driving hunched over the wheel concentrating on the road, i.e., working. Everyone's going to want to take the Jones' car to the lake.

Will all seats have to face only forward, I wonder, or could the front seats swivel and lock facing backward?

[Jesus Malverde]

34. I expect there will be private cars and corporate fleets of these cars

All will have different characteristics, Google has indicated they want a car without a steering wheel.

[Hortensis]

36. I really like the idea of fleets, but since

we live in a semi-rural area I wonder how long it might take until we could just dial one up out here. Our county here in the Deep South is extremely conservative, but even here they realize not everyone has their transport taken care of by family and members of their church congregations, although that's the imaginary tradition, and that the county has to provide something.

[FrodosPet]

45. Google is not getting a car without a steering wheel

OK, I know better. Never underestimate the stupidity of politicians and bureaucrats.

They are PROBABLY not going to set a car without human controls. And when they do, it will do some embarrassing things, and based on my recent research, the market will heavily reject them.

[Jesus Malverde]

49. In 4 years....

http://www.forbes.com/sites/leoking/2015/03/19/googles-gargantuan-push-for-cars-with-no-steering-wheel-by-2020/#2361900f7f7d

[FrodosPet]

64. I know Alphabet Inc has more money than God

Then again, who doesn't? God is always hitting up people, even the poorest people, for cash.

"He's omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. But he's not very good with money."

In any case, They are still going to find resistance. And there sure isn't anything close to standards to car-to-car and "shore" to car communications yet.

[Chan790]

70. Your problem consistently in this discussion...

is that you expect the public is going to have a say.

This, when it comes, is going to be a conversation solely between insurers, manufacturers, lawmakers and the Dept. of Transportation where all of them are saying the same thing to the public..."we know best, you don't get to have an opinion."

It's not something you're going to be able to resist...like seat-belt laws, it's going to be imposed on you and you'll adapt to accept it soon enough.

[Chan790]

69. Funny you say that...

do you know the story of how the Google Car lost it's steering wheel? This is actually funny.

In track testing (before they had done much live, on-road testing), they consistently noticed that in the highest-risk, worst situations...the situations that car is best suited to drive and humans are worst-suited to drive...drivers kept disengaging the self-driving capabilities and taking control of the car. This was a problem and it took a good deal of time to condition the drivers to think "Self-drive in the good times if you want...auto-drive is 100 times better for traffic and hazardous conditions than a human is capable of driving."

Anyways, once the project started to get some buzz and there was some nascent discussion about what state laws might look like, one of the things that kept coming up was that a number of states said they'd require the driver to be able to take control...precisely what shouldn't happen...so Google beat them to the pulpit and took the steering wheels out, calling it "an improvement to remove the most-faulty aspect of automotive-control from the equation."

[Odin2005]

26. Or simply can't drive for various reasons.

I have great trouble driving because of my autistic sensory issues and I feel like a second-class citizen because our society is so car-centric.

[Trust Buster]

29. Yes, I hope we all live to see the day that traveling is free of current endemic discriminations.

[AngryAmish]

42. I spend a lot of my time drunk.

Self driving cars would help me a lot. A friend of mine has a Tesla. The autopilot mode let's him goes hands off during rush hour on the expressway. 20 miles and he just texts all the time.

[FrodosPet]

46. So it does OK with lane drifters and people who come up quick on your 6?

If some a-hole zooms up on your tail, will it speed up or change lanes to avoid or minimize a "kiss my ass end" collision?

I do need to learn a lot more about Tesla's system.

[AngryAmish]

50. I get this second hand, so if I am wrong, so be it.

Lanes are kept by cameras. So on an interstate on rush hour, all is cool.

The front and back is lidar, iirc. E
So in your scenario with the coming up from behind, the car speeds up but stays short of the car in front.

[Mojorabbit]

56. Or have MS and too slow a reaction time.... nt

[moriah]

58. Until the tech is thoroughly tested through these...

... incremental ways cars are learning to assist drivers, and those of us who are sighted pilot these things to make sure they work reliably vs are going to lose a sensor and say a lane is clear when it's not...

I wouldn't want to get in one at all, and I know my vision is a gift -- was legally blind in one eye at five due to it being slightly less than perfect refractory-wise and my brain deciding to use the other preferentially.

Now I can pass the test without glasses or contacts, but it was a long road of glasses, patching, drops to blur my good eye when just after-school patching wasn't enough to get my brain to use that eye... essentially, for parts of my childhood I was forced to deal with extremely poor vision at least half of the time because otherwise I wouldn't have any in that eye at all now. Brains remain plastic enough only for a short time for the strategy to work as well as it did, so yay for kindergarten eye testing!

[Brickbat]

4. I like driving.

[Duckhunter935]

7. So do I

But there will come a time I might not be able too as I get older

[Brickbat]

10. It will be great to have that option, absolutely.

I was speaking more to the attitude of "why don't people like this?" They don't because most of them don't need it yet.

[RKP5637]

28. I've thought about that too. I love driving, and where I live. ... but if my

health fails driverless on an as-needed basis would be a nice option if not ridiculously overpriced.

[CanonRay]

8. Ditto

I don't even like self-correcting brakes...I know how to get out of a skid.

[shanti]

39. not i

self driving cars would be wonderful, but i want to see them in action, in real use, first.

[kentauros]

44. I like to drive. When there's no one else on the road.

Because then I can take corners and curves at the speeds that are fun and hone my skills of controlling the vehicle while still keeping in my lane and hugging the curb without ever grazing it.

But. I'd say that at least 90% of the time I can't do that because there's some yahoo in front of me that is a) crawling around that corner/curve, and b) taking it so wide as to "flatten" the curve as much as physically possible, and who gives a shit if they take up the entire road and cause oncoming traffic to slam to a stop to let them pass.

People know how to operate a motor vehicle.
That insane majority do not know how to drive. They're afraid of it.

[mopinko]

9. i want one. so does my daughter.

in fact, i am about to buy the closest thing to an autonomous car i can find.
i am almost 62, have never been a great driver, and recently had my insurance cancelled for one too many fender benders. i dont drive at night any more after a somewhat overtired double whammy.
i intend to buy a car that doesnt let me do that stuff, because living w/o a car scares me. that was sort of the last nail in the coffin of my mom's mental acuity. she sunk into dementia when she was isolated like that. she couldnt drive because her new hip cost her control of her right foot.

my daughter has epilepsy as well as anxiety problems. it is pretty well controlled with meds, but even if she could get her license, she doesnt want to drive.
she lives right near me, and hopefully, when she is feeling better she might get up her courage to try driving again. but there is no way she would do it without that back up. being able to borrow my car once in a while would make a big difference to her. she has other health issues, and often cannot walk to the store or the pharmacy when she needs to. and she spends way to much of her disability check on uber. she is dying for the day she can get a self driving car.

so yeah, some of us do want a failsafe on our cars. and as us boomers get up there, more will really want to put off that inevitable day when we cant drive any more. in this culture, it is practically a death sentence.

[PersonNumber503602]

14. Who wouldn't be concerned about using an unproven technology?

I would be nervous riding in a self-driving car at first, but I cannot wait until the day it's something we can feel confident about getting into.

Although there is that interesting moral dilemma that comes with a bunch of networked self-driving cars figuring out how to handle who needs to be sacrificed during a major accident.

[TreasonousBastard]

16. I always liked the old GM and Mercedes experiments with...

driverless cars on special roads with electronic sensors.

Take one highway lane and prepare it for driverless cars so you can forget about driving while the road and the car interact to get you where you want to go while taking a nap or reading a book. Integrate charging technologies into the road, too, so your electric car can take you cross country without a worry.

[Hoppy]

17. My car slows down if it gets too close to the car in front.

It even stops if the car in front stops. (2015 Hyundai Sonata).

I think it is wonderful.

I have driven at least 1,500,000 miles ( I am in sales) and never caused an accident.

I still pay attention to the road in front of me and don't depend on the car's radar and computer to do my job. Still, it is great to have a second pair of eyes working for me (besides my wife's).

Every car I buy in future, will have at least this amount of auto-control.

[Jesus Malverde]

19. Is that the one with three or four cameras at the top of the windshield?..nt

[Hoppy]

20. There is a camera in the windshield for lane departure detection.

[Jesus Malverde]

22. I was thinking of the new subaru's

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/03/subaru-uses-stereo-3d-tech-in-new-eyesight-adas/

[Hoppy]

23. No. Mine has a black, rectangular radar device on the grill.

It needs to be mostly free of dirt and bugs in order to work. There are four more radar devices, one on the corner of each fender.

[NutmegYankee]

21. This is why self-driving cars will never take over.

People want to be in control. Hell, I enjoy driving.

[Jesus Malverde]

25. Actually that will be one of the biggest challenges.

For years we have been marketed about the freedom driving gives us and the fun it is to drive down curvey roads.

Most cars bought by individuals spend the majority of their lives sitting in parking lots going no where.

Why should a car be idle all day while you sit at work? Why should you be paying for it to sit there.

Isn't the freedom to drive a car makers slogan, The new one will be the freedom to ride.

[NutmegYankee]

33. Well, if a car is driving all the time it will require far more maintenance and wear out faster.

It's sitting there like any other tool or object we own. My AC system sits idle half the year. My snowblower and lawnmower are only used a dozen times a year. I own a TV but only turn it on once a week.

This is normal.

As for driving curvy roads, I live in the southern New England uplands and my drive in is mostly curvy two lane roads. It makes the 25 minutes go by so quick.

[Jesus Malverde]

35. "Well, if a car is driving all the time it will require far more maintenance and wear out faster."

When I get my city car share I get a late model vehicle every time. Sometimes a little fiat, or a prius. If I need a pickup or a van I get one of those. So you have one car I have access to six or seven different models of new cars.

The car I use, comes with it's own parking spot which living in the city would cost me $200 a month. Insurance is included with the service, so is cleaning the car, and gas.

Cars wear out at the same rate driven or not except for tires. A car reaches it's useful life on the odometer not time.

Except in northern states where they salt the crap out of the roads. In your case the car might be rusty in a few years, in the new model the car gets replaced long before it starts to rust.

[NutmegYankee]

37. You live in a high density city, but most people don't.

They either live in suburbs or low density sprawling cities. I live out in the countryside, 8 miles from the nearest grocery store. The share services don't work out here. For what it's worth, I'll never live in a major city again. I like having land to garden, cleaner air, no noise pollution 24/7 and seeing wildlife each day. It's refreshing.

I do take issue with your statement that cars wear out at the same rate driven or not. A car that is lightly driven may last it's owner 20 years. Those ride share cars only last a few years. But since you are merely renting them, you don't care about that.

[Humanist_Activist]

63. Drivers don't really matter, insurance companies do, as soon as its...

shown that computer controlled cars are just 1% safer than human drivers on regular roads, it will be too expensive to not have a driver-less car. You would(rightly) be placed in a high risk pool.

[NutmegYankee]

66. Only if the law allows that.

I'm sure a lot of people will ensure that is prohibited.

[Chan790]

71. The law will allow this.

The automotive insurance industry started high-level C2C talks years ago to devise their strategy to thwart any public resistance. This fight will be over before you knew it started.

[Logical]

72. Lol, horse and buggy people said the same thing, i love it! Nt

[meow2u3]

24. I don't like the idea of autonomous cars

They call to mind this: "In Soviet Russia, car drives you!"

[Odin2005]

27. Technophobic old people die eventually.

[NutmegYankee]

38. It isn't technophobia.

I think stability control and lane detection/auto braking are great features. I just still want to actually be in control. I enjoy the driving, which is why I drive stick shift cars.

[hunter]

30. I hate automobiles and I hate driving.

I was hoping the automobile age would be over by now.

The world would be a better place if fewer people were driving.

[kentauros]

40. I love the concept of self-driving cars.

Because the majority of the drivers out there are simply not good drivers. They don't take driving seriously. Too many insist on being distracted drivers, mostly by being on their phones in some capacity. They don't read signs. Many can't seem to stand the idea of missing an exit and turning around at the next exit (how many times have you seen some idiot backing up in the emergency lane because they just have to make that exit they drove past?) Just as many will drive over curbs to avoid some slowdown of traffic ahead of them.

Self-driving cars would eliminate all of that stupidity. Whatever "concern" that so-called majority has doesn't compare to the concern I have with them over their own unsafe driving habits.

[Heeeeers Johnny]

52. Maybe it's time we treated distracted driving, texting, talking on a cellphone

The same way we treat and punish drunk drivers?

[kentauros]

54. There are laws that fine people.

The biggest problem is that the person has to be seen in the act of using their phone. Drunk driving has various reliable tests after the fact. Unless officers are also allowed to look at the last activity of the phone, they can't do much about stopping their use while driving.

[Yavin4]

41. Because of texting, self driving cars will be here sooner than you think

The younger generation has grown up texting 24/7. They won't be able to pay attention to the road. Self driving cars allows people to drive and text.

[liberal_at_heart]

43. As with most technology, it will be great for advancing independence among older people and

the disabled. My husband is legally blind, and we don't live near a bus stop. He depends on me to drive him to either his destination or at the very least the nearest bus station. My father is also losing more and more of his sight as he ages and he has not given up driving yet so he is becoming an increasing danger on the road. autonomous cars would be great for both my husband and my father. I think the young may not want one because a lot of young people have rejected owning a lot of things lately. Most young people don't want to own a car or a house.

[Shandris]

48. "And today, an unexplained explosion in driver Gren Gleenward's automatic car. Police say...

...that the car spontaneously combusted for no reason whatsoever, which clearly indicates that he took an explosive in and detonated it intentionally while driving at a high rate of speed. Google's logs confirm this, but they can't be shown because they're proprietary. And now sports."

Yeah, having trouble thinking of reasons people might not trust remote controlled vehicles.

[Heeeeers Johnny]

51. I have no problem with those that would want this technology for their personal use

But myself... I have zero interest in adopting it.

Cut and paste from the other thread regarding this ...

Maybe, just maybe they can develop an completely autonomous system sufficient for limited use,
conditions and locations, but whatever they come up with, it will never come even close to the capabilities
and decision making with a human operator behind the wheel.

Is that a rock, chunk of wood or is it a paper cup, piece of cardboard in the road?

Will it know where those little known prime parking spaces are located?

Does it like parking at the front of the lot or the back of the lot?

Will it like to park in the shady spot, or the sunny spot?

Can it spot when someone has gotten into a vehicle and is about to leave?

Can it anticipate when is the best time to change over to the right or left lane?

Does it know when it's better to avoid the left or right lane altogether?

Will it park back in or face forward?

Will it recognize and overly conform to the signage of local (public or private), and municipal
parking/driving ordinances?

What's it going to do when traffic/street/parking lines are faded or non-existent?

What's it going to do when those lines are covered with snow?

What's it's favorite short cut. Bonus points for knowing at what time of day?

Is it going to slow down (and perhaps stop), when the occupants spots something interesting (and I don't' mean
rubbernecking at an accident scene)?

Etc... etc... etc.

I really want no part of this.

I hope the technology dies on the vine like Google Glass did.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027867250#post9

[Avalux]

53. I love to drive. I love to shift the gears and turn the wheels myself.

I don't think I could handle being the 'driver' of an automated car. It would completely freak me out.

[stevenleser]

55. This article reminds me of articles in the 1970s and early 1980s...

... "Why would you want a computer in your home... most people don't want one"

[FrodosPet]

60. But the computer was something YOU controlled. By design, you have little to no control.

Personally, I see a great need for the technology. It will save lives. It will offer greater mobility to shut-ins. I am going all in.

At the same time, it WILL be disruptive. People will be hurt and killed who would not be until it is very mature. And millions of people around the world will be financially destroyed if truck, bus, taxi, and rideshare jobs are eliminated.

[stevenleser]

62. Perhaps but it concerns me more I have no control of the planes I fly in.

Every-time we hit turbulence I think, ya know, if it were me flying I would put down somewhere until this nastiness stops. But there you are 30,000 feet in the air and not the slightest bit of control over whats happening.

I think it will save more lives than it takes and pretty quickly. There are a massive amount of auto fatalities per year and almost all of them because of human error.

[whatthehey]

75. Really?

I don't feed in 0s and 1s and decide which processor any given bit of code runs on. I just tell the computer to navigate to website X or make Excel give me the result of a formula. In other words I tell my computer what result I want and trust that it is far more capable of managing the means to that end than I am.

It's not like autonomous cars will decide when you should go to the store or whether you should take a trip to Chicago or Des Moines instead this weekend. You decide where you want to go, tell the car and it gets you there, just like a computer does for users.

30,000 people get killed every year in the US with human drivers. If it's 20,000 with autonomous cars that's a big gain.

Farriers who had common sense became mechanics. Taxi drivers have the highest homicide rate of any profession; it's hard, and pointless, to kill an autonomous vehicle software installation.

[Chan790]

73. They remind me of articles around the same time...

saying "There's no way laws will ever be passed making seat-belts mandatory. The public doesn't want these laws and there will be too much resistance."

By 1985, it was over in most states and the number of people that had supported the laws never broke 10%. The insurance and automotive industries wanted the laws and expended the capital to insure they got their way.

This is going to go the same way. Ford, Google and State Farm are going to have a say...the public is not.

[Logical]

74. I agree, people always fight new technology. Nt

[One_Life_To_Give]

61. They don't play World of Warcraft?

And don't need the extra hours every day to level?

[TeamPooka]

65. You folks need these cars. I'm good with what I drive now. nt

[jmowreader]

67. Rental cars for rich people. Perfect application.

You're a high mucky-muck in some Big Oligarchic Corporation who has to go out of town to a trade show, and you're going to spend the day after the show seeing the sights before you go home. Rather than hauling along your GPS and a city map - or spending half your time lost - you upload the list of places you're going to be staying, working, dining and so on to We-Drive-U Luxury Rental Cars before you leave. When you get on the ground in your destination city, the car you are issued has "airport," "hotel," "convention center," "restaurants," "morning tour" and "afternoon tour" buttons on its touchscreen. Tap one, and the car takes you right there.

Most people would never want a self-drive car at home, but they'd love one in an unfamiliar city.

[killbotfactory]

77. Don't we all just love stop and go rush hour traffic, fatal crashes, drunk drivers, and near misses.

Just tell everyone they can dick around on their smart phone the whole trip without killing anybody or themselves, and they'll change their mind.

[Amishman]

78. i'd like the option, but absolutely would never buy one if I could not put it to manual

I'd love the option for putting it on autodriver for my commute home and doze off while it takes me home after a tough day.

I generally enjoy driving, so I would insist on being able to drive it myself if I chose.