Driverless cars ‘should crash to avoid child pedestrians’ even if it means occupants die, according to motorists
BRITISH motorists want driverless cars to out their own safety at if it means avoiding a collision with a child.
A recent survey asked drivers to choose what they would want their autonomous car to do if two children ran onto the road in front of them and the car didn't have time to stop.
And worryingly, not all drivers chose to prioritise the kids' safety over their own.
More than 21,000 AA members were asked the tough question in a recent survey to see how driverless tech could be integrated on a moral level.
Almost 60 per cent said they would want their car to avoid hitting the children at all costs - even if it risked their own life.
However, some respondents favoured a much more selfish option.
Around four per cent of drivers wanted their car to keep going and run over the children, while two per cent elected to swerve onto the footpath and hit an elderly couple.
More than a third of motorists polled in the survey chose to not give their preference, which experts believe highlights the ethical dilemma many drivers face with driverless vehicles.
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Edmund King, president of the AA, said: "Of those who could make a choice, a clear majority decided to put themselves in danger, perhaps indicating they accept the risks and potential fallibilities of the technology.
"The driverless dilemma is a common question for programmers of autonomous vehicles. The number of people who avoided giving a definitive answer shows this is a difficult live or let die dilemma."
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Last year, we revealed an online social experiment which presented a series of moral dilemmas on who should theoretically die if a driverless car had to choose in a crash.
The experiment called poses different scenarios on whether the driver, passengers or pedestrians should survive if the car couldn't stop.
In some cases, you're forced to choose whether to save people based on their age, weight or profession.