Most Canadians Don’t Want Self-Driving Cars…Especially if They Can’t Drink and Be Passengers

One in four Canadians think self-driving cars are pretty cool – until they’re told that they can’t, in fact, drink and drive.

Or, more accurately, drink and be passengers.

These findings come from GFK, a consumer market research firm that discovered Canadians reacted with a “significant decrease” of interest in autonomous vehicles if it meant they couldn’t indulge in some bevvies and ring up their robot for a ride home.

The reason, of course, is laws and regulations, which are probably reasonable in this case given that humans aren’t just passengers in self-driving cars. High-tech cars currently in development still need some sort of human interaction to operate.

Given how hard it can be to merely open a car door under the influence (those tricky door handles are so tricky), it’s very well possible to expect some people to enter a lake in the robo-car’s GPS instead of their own address as a final destination.

A recent report by California’s Department of Motor Vehicles highlights a number of incidents in which humans had to take control of self-driving cars. That number has been quantified as “not terribly high, but certainly not trivial” by a professor at the University of South Carolina.

And that’s in good weather.

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