Bicyclists more comfortable riding next to driverless vehicles
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Don’t like driving next to a cyclist? The feeling is mutual.
Most Pittsburgh cyclists feel safer pedaling next to a self-driving car than next to cars with human drivers, according to a survey from BikePGH released Tuesday.
Between two-thirds and threequarters of the survey respondents — both cyclists and pedestrians — believe the robotic cars have the potential to reduce injuries and fatalities, according to a BikePGH press release: “Numerous people noted how (autonomous vehicles) traveled the speed limit, were cautious, didn’t block crosswalks at red lights, and used turn signals, ‘which automatically Pa. lawmakes craft new rules for self-driving cars, Business, page E-1. sets them apart,’ according to one respondent.”
The survey indicates a higher level of acceptance of robotic cars among cyclists and pedestrians than among other drivers, 75 percent of whom said in a recent AAA survey that they were afraid of them.
Some cyclists and pedestrians surveyed were still leery of the non-human. One said, “The car obeys a logic that is by definition not human and I do not know how to anticipate its behavior.” Another wrote, “I know how to
tell if a human driver can see me, but how do I know if AI sees me?”
According to the survey: “One participant noted how an ‘(Autonomous vehicle) cannot do illegal things because it is not programmed to do them — for example, when I rode in an AV, it could not make the “Pittsburgh Left,” and because it was holding the traffic pattern (the car on the other side of the light was waving us through and would not move until we did) the driver eventually took over to make the left.’ ”
BikePGH launched the survey last fall, after several email complaints and a report about a self-driving car making an illegal turn across a bike lane in San Francisco, according to the press release. The group first surveyed its members, getting 321 responses (an 11 percent response rate); it then launched the survey again, opening it to the public and promoting it on the BikePGH website and social media channels and in a few news articles. That effort yielded 798 responses (not all from the Pittsburgh region), for a combined total of 1,119 responses.
About 40 percent of respondents had firsthand interaction with self-driving cars on the streets of Pittsburgh.
Not all reports were positive, according to the release: “Several people have experience with an (autonomous vehicle) passing them within mere inches. There were multiple reports about how, as a pedestrian, the (autonomous vehicle) did not stop for them while they were waiting to cross in a crosswalk, a dynamic that seems especially problematic in crosswalks at unsignalized intersections.”
One survey respondent claimed to have seen a selfdriving car run a red light, and another claimed to have seen one attempt to drive the wrong way down a one-way street, according to the release.
But those were the exceptions.
The general attitude toward self-driving cars in the survey could be summed up in one respondent’s comment: “Their novelty should not obscure the fact that they are neither distracted, intoxicated, nor aggressive, unlike the far more numerous human operators I encounter on the roads.”
Results of the survey can be found on the BikePGH website.