The automotive industry has been placing a huge amount of emphasis on self-driving cars these days. Robo-taxies are popping up in larger cities and most car companies now offer some form of hands-free driving system. But do people even want this feature? A new survey from the American Automobile Association (AAA) has found that two-thirds of American drivers are afraid of self-driving technology. That figure has increased dramatically in the past few years.

The survey asked drivers over the age of 18 to describe how they feel about self-driving cars with one of three words: Afraid, Unsure, or Trusting. 66% of adult drivers said they are “Afraid” of self-driving cars, compared to 9% who are “Trusting” and 25% who are “Unsure.” In the same survey back in 2021, 54% were “Afraid” of the technology, compared to 32% who were “Unsure” and 14% who were “Trusting.”

Some of the horrific accidents that the technology has been causing could be contributing to the growing unease that Americans have for self-driving cars. There have been a number of high-profile fatalities involving these systems.

One involved a Cruise robo-taxi in San Francisco last year. A woman pedestrian was hit by a driver and tossed into the lane in front of an approaching robo-taxi. The robot car didn’t interpret the woman as a pedestrian because she didn’t walk into the lane. It ran over her and dragged her more than 20 feet. She survived but suffered catastrophic injuries from being pinned beneath the undercarriage.

An Uber-Volvo prototype killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona during a test run in 2018. Tesla is one of the most popular and well-known brands of electric cars these days. The self-driving feature of the cars was responsible for more than 700 crashes and 17 fatalities between 2019 and 2023.

Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s sister-in-law was killed in Texas earlier this year when her Tesla backed into a pond. It turns out that you can’t open the doors or windows of an all-electric vehicle when you submerge it in water. Horrified friends and family members watched her drown because they couldn’t get the doors open or break the windows. Teslas are sturdy vehicles, but…

Another problem that no one seems to have anticipated is the thorny issue of liability after crashes involving self-driving or hands-free technology. If you’re in the driver’s seat of a self-driving car and it runs over a bunch of kindergarteners, whose fault is it?

Many of the court cases involving self-driving cars have so far found the manufacturers to be liable. But not always. If an overzealous court or prosecutor decides to go after a driver, they could find themselves charged with manslaughter or second-degree murder, depending on what state they live in.

Was anyone actually asking for this technology before it came along? None of the automakers asked for permission to start implementing self-driving technology. They just started doing it. Nearly every car brand now has some type of hands-free “driver assistance” technology that it provides.

The National Highway and Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Department of Transportation (DOT) are supposedly regulating the industry and ensuring its safety. But does anyone trust any federal agency to do something right these days, especially in the wake of COVID? These agencies have the authority to issue recalls against vehicles, but they can’t mandate anything. All they can do is issue “guidelines.”

You have to wonder whether this is going to lead to some sort of crash in the auto market when two-thirds of drivers are “Afraid” of self-driving technology and 91% of people don’t trust it.