Once people get the first-hand experience of a new technology and get familiarized with it, their misgivings and anxiety are spontaneously discarded in no time. The initial reluctance and dread morph into joyous excitement and they become eager about the dynamism that new technology will infuse into their daily lives.
Waymo short video of moving autonomous car
Waymo, which is at the forefront of popularizing autonomous vehicles and changing prevailing attitudes, released a second short video that now shows people sitting inside a moving autonomous car. The pilot project was carried on in Phoenix, Arizona and shows different people showing different reactions as they see that the car is moving automatically, with no human assistance.
Some passengers look at the console with amazement, while others are astonished when the steering changes directions. Some people can also be seen nonchalantly moving their fingers on their smartphones, looking out of the car window, while others are simply laidback and appear a bit dizzy. Amidst all of the different reactions, one thing in common: people became more relaxed as the car moved on.
Waymo has concluded that riders tend to relax inside the self-driving vehicles once they come to know that they can follow the vehicle’s live field of view on passenger screens in the back seat. And then they relax and gasp!
People relaxing inside the cars shows that once they see how the car moves, how it turns, how it crosses other cars and looks for obstacles ahead, if any, they become more and more convinced about their safety and naturally tend to be less alert.
Also Read: Waymo’s video on self-driving cars will simply blow your mind
Waymo’s video has been released in the wake of a recent American Automobile Association study that found that 63 percent of U.S. drivers are afraid to ride in a fully autonomous vehicle, which is down from 78 percent last year.
As per the survey, male drivers and millennials trust autonomous cars the most, with only 50 percent exhibiting skepticism or fear.
