The Safety and Reliability of Networked Autonomous Vehicles: Ethical Dilemmas, Liability Litigation Concerns, and Regulatory Issues

I draw on a substantial body of theoretical and empirical research on the safety and reliability of networked autonomous vehicles, and using and replicating data from Cisco Systems, Ipsos, and Pew Research Center, I performed analyses and made estimates regarding % of U.S. adults who say the development of driverless vehicles makes them feel enthusiastic/worried, how often international drivers expect that they will use a vehicle in self-driving mode for parking, commuting, driving in the city, driving on the highway, driving in bad weather, and driving with passengers, and % of U.S. adults who expect driverless vehicles would help elderly and disabled be more independent, would feel safe sharing road with a driverless passenger vehicle, are very/somewhat enthusiastic about their widespread use, expect that they would reduce traffic injuries/deaths, would feel safe sharing road with a driverless freight truck, expect that driverless vehicles would reduce traffic in major cities, are very/somewhat worried about their widespread use, strongly favor requiring human at the wheel in case of emergency, strongly favor that they travel in dedicated lanes, or strongly favor restricting them from certain areas. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data and test the proposed conceptual model.