Teens Probably Won’t Like Self-Driving Cars, but Their Parents Will

May 6, 2015 | By Business Wire News

PITTSBURGH

If consumers have their way, self-driving cars will enable parents to keep tighter reins on teen motorists. A survey conducted by the College of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University reveals that people are soundly in favor of putting parental controls in high-tech cars of the future. 1,000 people, aged 18-70, were polled to learn which freedom-foiling attribute they deemed most important.

Top Parental Controls

1. Control to set speed limit, curfew time and number of passengers (84%)

2. Control feature to limit the geographic range the car will travel (61%)

3. Parent text display to communicate with driver (60%)

Roughly 84% all respondents wanted to control a car’s speed, the number of BFFs who can pile into the car, and set the driver’s curfew time. Women (87%) were strongly in support of this capability, as were 91% of people aged 66 to 70. Even 81% of the youngest people polled, age 18-24, favored these novel features. Implementing these types of control technologies could save lives, prevent injuries and reduce costs associated with accidents. In 2013, 2,524 teenagers perished in motor vehicles crashes, making vehicle accidents the leading cause of death for teenagers. Compared to older drivers and miles driven, teen drivers are three times more likely to be in a fatal wreck. Young, inexperienced drivers tend to speed and drive too fast for road conditions. Further, teens are more likely to crash when they have teen passengers in the car.

When it comes to curtailing the distance teen drivers can travel, men (62%) and women (61%) closely align on this point. This notion, however, did not resonate well with 18- to 24-year olds. Only 54% of them opted for this feature, whereas almost 65% of drivers aged 36 to 45 would constrain a car’s geographic range.

The one area where 18- to 24-year olds outscored all other age groups was in their receptiveness to having a parental text display in the car. Surprisingly, 69% of the youngest respondents thought this was useful while only 53% of people aged 56 to 65 would consider this option. Women (63%) tended to be more receptive than men (57%) to this communication feature.

About the survey: Carnegie Mellon, the birthplace of autonomous vehicle (AV) technology, has a 30-year history of advancing self-driving car technology for commercialization. The college polled 1,000 people to gain insight into what consumers are looking for in self-driving cars. In the survey, a self-driving car was defined as having sensors and computing technology that allows the car to safely travel without a driver controlling the steering wheel, gas and brake pedal. The vehicle would automatically move at safe speeds, keep a safe distance from surrounding cars, change traffic lanes, obey traffic signals and follow GPS directions to destinations.

The College of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University is a top-ranked, engineering college that is known for its intentional focus on cross-disciplinary collaboration in research. The College is well respected for its work on problems of both scientific and practical importance. Our acclaimed faculty have a focus on innovation management and engineering to yield transformative results that will drive the intellectual and economic vitality of our community, nation and world.

About Carnegie Mellon University: Carnegie Mellon (www.cmu.edu) is a private, internationally ranked university with programs in areas ranging from science, technology and business to public policy, the humanities and the arts. More than 12,000 students in the university’s seven schools and colleges benefit from a small faculty-to-student ratio and an education characterized by its focus on creating and implementing solutions for real world problems, interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation. A global university, Carnegie Mellon’s campus in the United States is in Pittsburgh, Pa. It has campuses in California’s Silicon Valley, Qatar, and programs in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and Mexico.