Are self-driving cars safe? A UBC study says British Columbians aren’t too sure

Self-driving vehicles have been promoted by manufacturers as improving the safety of roads, even being safer than most vehicles because they eliminate “human error.”

But new research out of the University of British Columbia’s Research on Active Transportation (REACT) Lab shows that British Columbians aren’t entirely convinced, especially when it comes to pedestrian comfort and safety.

Active modes of transportation like walking and cycling are being promoted in parallel with the introduction of self-driving vehicles.

“There’s this feeling of being unsafe, that may change the behaviour of these active users… they might decide to not walk as often,” said Gurdiljot Singh Gill a civil engineering PhD candidate who conducted the study. “And we don’t want these vehicles to be introduced in a way that discourages people from their behaviours.

“Our project is about learning how people would interact with these vehicles and how we can inform policy to introduce these vehicles responsibly.”

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The research aims to bridge a gap. While there have been numerous studies on self-driving vehicles, few have looked at how people will be interacting with them.

Participants had to watch several video clips that showed people interacting with vehicles. Half were labelled as self-driven and the other half were labelled as human-driven when they were all actually human-driven. The study was designed this way to detect bias.

Of the 1,133 people surveyed across B.C., 41 per cent thought pedestrians faced reduced safety and comfort levels during interactions with self-driving vehicles.

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Gill said some of the biggest takeaways from the study was how the vehicles should be introduced.

“We asked questions like ‘Do you want a person to be in the drivers seat of a self-driving vehicle?’ and more than 75 per cent of people wanted someone there,” he said. “Or ‘Do you want these vehicles to be clearly identified?” and over 90 per cent of people said they do.”

In addition to having someone in the drivers seat and vehicles being clearly identified, the team found that an introduction to self-driving vehicles would be best through shared vehicles like shuttles or buses.

“I really thought that people would be strongly skeptical or strongly optimistic, but that doesn’t seem to be the case,” said Gill. “Most people are right in the middle, there isn’t a polarization that I thought there was.”