Key takeaways
- YouGov study conducted in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Singapore, Spain and the USA examines attitudes towards and expectations of driverless cars
- While Poles and Singaporeans are divided on how comfortable they’d be travelling in a self-driving car, most in the other countries surveyed are uncomfortable
- Attitudes differ across countries on the impact of driverless cars, but in all countries surveyed expectations on the impact on jobs are negative
- Women are consistently more negative about self-driving vehicles than men
- While levels of comfort at the prospect of riding in a driverless bus are similar to self-driving cars, people are more likely to be comfortable with the idea of using a driverless train or metro
Self-driving vehicles are still in their infancy, but the technology has the potential to transform the way we get around – as well as disrupting huge sections of the economy and society.
So where does the public stand?
A new international YouGov study – conducted in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Singapore, Spain and the USA – examines attitudes towards and expectations of driverless cars.
Additionally, our research also uniquely provides a look at how comfortable people in each country would feel about self-driving public transport, namely buses, trains and metro rail.
How comfortable do people feel about riding in a self-driving car?
One of the key obstacles to public adoption of self-driving cars will be safety concerns, and our survey shows that, for the time being, there is still widespread discomfort about the prospect of using such a vehicle.
In France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the USA, approximately six in ten (61-65%) say they are very or fairly uncomfortable about riding in a driverless car. However, a sizeable minority are prepared to give the 21st century transport a chance, with between 26-31% in each of these countries saying they would feel at least fairly comfortable with a robot chauffeur.
Singapore and Poland prove to be more adventurous, although they are still divided, with Singaporeans split 43% to 44% on whether they would be comfortable or not, while for Poles those figures are 39% and 41% respectively.
Britain is an outlier in the other direction, with fully 73% saying they would feel uncomfortable riding in a self-driving car, compared to only 20% who would feel comfortable.
How does willingness to use a self-driving car compare to driving yourself, or taking a taxi?
While some may profess to be comfortable with riding in a self-driving car, there is still a stronger preference for direct control. Asked whether they would prefer to drive themselves or ride in a self-driving car, the number choosing the futuristic option stands at 11-26% across our countries – notably lower in each case than the number who would be comfortable riding in a driverless car.
Of course, the more appropriate comparison may be with scenarios where you are driven around by someone else, i.e. in a taxi or an Uber. When this distinction is drawn, we see 8-11pt increases in preference for self-driving cars in each country, representing between 22% and 34% opting this way. However, in each nation this is still notably below the number who would prefer a human driver (48-69%).
While a minority in each country say they are comfortable with the idea of riding in a self-driving car, in no country do more than 50% of this group say they would rather take a self-driving car than drive themselves, although in Poland the 49% who prefer the self-driving option do outnumber the 41% who would rather do it themselves.
However, when the option is between a taxi or ride share service and a self-driving car, the scales tip in favour of the latter in all countries, with between 48% and 63% of those comfortable with the idea of riding in a self-driving car saying this would be their preference.
Do people think self-driving cars will ever be as safe as human drivers?
While people may not relish the prospect of a trip in a self-driving car currently, what do they think the direction of travel looks like for the technology?
In almost all countries surveyed, more people than not say they believe that self-driving cars will one day be good enough to drive as safely as human drivers. Italy is the notable outlier, with just 34% expecting self-driving cars to match the safety of human drivers – 48% think they will never do so. In other countries this figure stands at 21-38%.
How do people feel about sharing the road with self-driving vehicles?
Although people can put off riding in self-driving cars themselves, they can’t control their presence on the roads. So how comfortable are people in each country with sharing the tarmac with the technology?
Again, people are primarily uncomfortable, with the majority (54-67%) in most of our countries expressing their discomfort about having to occupy the same roadways as driverless cars. Poland and Singapore continue to stand out, with Poles split 35% comfortable to 39% uncomfortable, while in Singapore more people are actually more comfortable (47%) than not (40%).
Self-driving cars may not be the only driverless road vehicles that people have to share the road with, with self-driving buses (already approved in Norway) and self-driving lorries (being tested in the US, Europe, and China) also likely to be coming to the world’s roads in coming years.
To varying degrees, people are less comfortable sharing the street with these larger vehicles, especially when it comes to lorries, which only 15-28% are relaxed about being on the road with.
What impact do people think self-driving cars will have?
The introduction of widespread driverless cars will likely have a transformative impact – but do people think this will be for the better or for worse? We asked respondents about eight different areas that self-driving cars would affect.
There is a tendency in each country to think that self-driving cars will have a positive impact on the ability of older people and the disabled to get around, and likewise a general expectation in all countries that the technology will have a negative impact on jobs.
For our other categories opinion across the selected countries differs. Notably, Britons are the most likely or among the most likely to expect a negative impact across all categories, whereas Poles and Singaporeans continue to be the most optimistic, with Poles in particular notably less worried about jobs than other nations.
When it comes to the impact on the environment and the cost of getting around, expectations tend towards the positive (except in Britain, which is negative, and the US, which is near evenly divided).
Expectations are relatively divided in most countries in terms of the impact on traffic and congestion, with Germans notably the most likely to tend towards the positive.
The impact on society in general elicits more negative than positive responses in most countries, while Singaporeans stand out for their relatively high net positive score.
Singaporeans are likewise the most likely to expect a positive impact on the economy, with Poles and Germans also having net positive expectations.
People who feel uncomfortable riding in a self-driving car are negative about the technology more generally
Discomfort at the prospect of riding in a self-driving car isn’t simply an indicator of how safe someone thinks the vehicles are, it is a proxy for negativity towards the technology in general.
Across virtually all of the prospective impacts of self-driving cars we asked about, the less comfortable someone is with riding in such vehicles, the more likely they are to be negative about the changes self-driving cars will bring.
For instance, even on the measure of mobility for older people – the most well-received impact area among respondents in general – those who are “very uncomfortable” with the idea of riding in self-driving cars have net negative expectations in most countries (France is an outlier on +16, with other countries ranging from -33 to -1). This compares to a range of -4 to +48 among those who are “fairly uncomfortable” with the idea of using the technology, and +40 to +71 among those who are comfortable with the prospect.
The same is true across broader areas like impact on the economy, the environment, and society more broadly. In all of these cases, there is overall net negativity in every country among the “very” uncomfortable group, and net positivity in every country for the comfortable group.
An area where figures look very different to the rest is jobs. While the very uncomfortable are still the most negative in this regard, we also see net negativity in most countries among comfortable prospective riders as well. This suggests that the impact that the self-driving cars will have on jobs is one that to a certain extent transcends enthusiasm for the technology.
How do people feel about self-driving trains, metros and buses?
Aside from self-driving cars, our survey also examined attitudes to self-driving public transport, namely buses, trains and metro trains.
The results show that people in most countries are far more likely to feel comfortable riding the driverless rail vehicles compared to the driverless road vehicles.
How many people feel comfortable about riding a self-driving bus?
In each country, the proportion of people who feel comfortable about the prospect of riding in a self-driving bus broadly matches the figure for a self-driving car; within 4 points in each case. This ranges from 45% and 42% feeling comfortable about riding a self-driving bus in Singapore and Poland down to 22% in Britain.
How many people feel comfortable about riding a self-driving train?
Levels of comfort about being a passenger on a self-driving train are much more consistent between countries, ranging from 39% in Italy to 46% in France. With the exception of Poland, these figures are substantially higher than comfort levels for self-driving cars and buses.
We did not include this question in Singapore, as there is virtually no non-metro passenger rail in the country.
How many people feel comfortable about riding a self-driving metro train?
Willingness to ride on a self-driving metro was highest out of all forms of transport we asked about in each country (41-57%), albeit generally not to a much greater extent than trains.
France proves the exception, where the 57% who are comfortable riding on a self-driving metro is notably higher than the 46% who say so of self-driving trains.
These metro figures exclude Singapore, which proves a notable case study for this form of transport. Much of the MRT – Singapore’s rail transport network – is already self-driving, and we can see there is a high degree of comfort with that fact. Fully 76% say they are comfortable with the self-driving nature of the MRT, compared to just 18% who are not.
Indeed, if we move away from opinion as a measure of behaviour and turn instead to ‘revealed preference’, we can see that fully 85% of Singaporeans ride the metro at least once a month, with a mere 1% saying they never do so.
This already suggests a positive outlook for the public adoption of self-driving rail transport in other countries, and further data shows that the presence of qualified staff on trains and metros is likely to help further.
Preliminary research for this study in Britain revealed that the main reasons for discomfort when it came to driverless trains typically revolved around the lack of a human on board in the event of emergencies or breakdowns.
That being the case, we followed up this generic question on comfort riding self-driving buses, trains and metros with one that stipulated such staff members would be on board. In all cases, we can see that there is a marked increase in the number of people who would now feel comfortable using such transport.
Most people are comfortable with the idea of riding in at least one form of self-driving vehicle
If we examine how people responded across all four forms of self-driving transport, we find that most in each country (52-64%) are comfortable with the prospect of riding in at least one form. However, only 12-21% are comfortable riding in all four, while a large minority (36-48%) in each country are not comfortable riding in any.
We again see the clear distinction between road and rail transport in the results – where respondents are only comfortable with two or three forms of transport, they are highly likely (72-96%) to have included both train and metro.
Those who use rail and metro often are more likely than those who never do to feel comfortable using self-driving versions
Our results show that frequent rail and metro users are far more likely to feel comfortable with the prospect of riding on the equivalent self-driving forms than those who never use these forms of transport.
The same is true in most countries regarding bus riders and self-driving buses, with the US results of particular note, with an enormous difference between just 16% of Americans who never ride buses feeling comfortable about the robotic version of the technology versus fully 53% of those who ride the bus on a monthly basis.
When it comes to car drivers’ feelings about self-driving cars, the trend across nations is much less obvious. For instance, in the USA, those who never drive are the most likely to say they would feel comfortable using the technology, while Singapore is the only nation for which the most frequent drivers are the most likely to be willing to ride in a self-driving car.
(Please note, in order to keep to a 3-category format, the frequency classifications we have used for self-driving cars are different to those used for self-driving public transport, due to the different frequency distributions of car driving versus public transport ridership, which would result in sample sizes too small to examine in some cases. The (lack of) a relationship holds true under the previous categorisation even if we only use those groups where sample sizes are large enough to examine)
Women are much less comfortable with self-driving transport than men
Our results consistently show across all countries and forms of technology that women are less comfortable with the prospect of being a passenger in a self-driving vehicle than men.
Clearly there are safety concerns, with women more likely in all countries to have more net negative expectations of the impact on road safety.
In fact, not only are women more likely to think driverless technology would have a negative impact on road safety, they are less likely to think that driverless cars will ever be as safe as human drivers.
Italy is something of an exception when it comes to driverless cars and buses, although this might be more properly explained by Italian men being uniquely more sceptical of these technologies than men in other countries, rather than reflecting any particular difference in Italian female attitudes.
However, attitudes go beyond simple concerns about safety, as the results also show that women have more pessimistic expectations for the impact of the technology.
The only impact on which women across the countries surveyed are consistently and substantially net positive is on the impact on mobility for older or disabled people (except in Singapore, with a net score of 0) – and in all cases they are still behind men.
In several of the countries surveyed women also have a net positive expectation of the environmental impact of self-driving cars, while for the other impacts we asked about – on society; jobs; economy; cost of getting around; traffic levels – they are generally either divided or net negative overall. Again, in virtually all cases they are more negative than men from their country.
Older people are often more negative about driverless vehicles than younger people
Generational differences are less clear cut than gender differences. Broadly speaking, the oldest age group are often the least likely to feel comfortable with the prospect of using self-driving transport, although the extent to which this is the case can differ dramatically by country and transport type.
Older people likewise have more negative tendencies when it comes to the impact self-driving cars will have (although Poland proves to be a consistent exception). They tend to be more net negative about the impact on mobility for the elderly, traffic levels, jobs, road safety and the cost of getting around. But when it comes to the economic and environmental impact, the generational trend breaks down.
See full results
Methodology
- Sample size: Online survey of 2,107 Adults in GB / 1,009 in France / 1,095 in Germany / 1,007 Adults in Poland / 1,039 Adults in Spain / 1,003 Adults in Italy / 1,022 Adults in Singapore / 1,105 Adult Citizens in the US
- Fieldwork: 6 May - 7 June 2026
- Commissioned by: YouGov
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