Advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) technologies in vehicles (e.g. park assist, lane change assist, emergency braking, etc.), which ta
… (see more)ke over parts of the driving task of human drivers, are advancing at a disruptive pace and hold the potential to deliver many benefits to society. However, public understanding of ADAS systems, and driver training and licensing for using them, are lagging behind the fast-paced technological development, which could raise safety issues or slow the deployment of ADAS, thus offsetting their potential benefits. There is, therefore, a need to investigate issues related to public perception of ADAS in order to develop appropriate policies and governance structures which support innovation, and result in the smooth deployment and acceptance of appropriate ADAS for society. In this work we perform a quantitative public survey to better understand how the public's awareness and knowledge of ADAS technologies in their vehicles correlate to their use or engagement of those technologies. We find that up to 67% of participants never or rarely use optional ADAS in their vehicles (e.g. adaptive cruise control), where women were less likely than men to use ADAS even though women reported more awareness of ADAS in their vehicles, better training, and more willingness to pay for ADAS. By performing this analysis we hope to raise awareness around the public perception of current state-of-the-art in ADAS technologies. We also hope to flag concerns that answers to these questions might raise for the regulatory agencies, and manufacturers, responsible for bringing these technologies to market.
