Parent Opinions of Automated Vehicles and Young Driver Mobility

Abstract

Previous research has identified that autonomous vehicles (AVs) may be useful in increasing the mobility of certain groups, including children. Teenagers present a unique ridership case, as many teenagers hold a form of driver’s license although they are still children. Using an online survey, parents were asked about their general opinions of AV as well as several questions regarding their willingness to transport their teenagers in an AV unattended. Results indicated that factors such as early adopter status, the potential to delay teenager licensing, and perceived safety were related to parent willingness. These findings may be used to shape future research into using AVs to increase the mobility of teenagers.

1. Introduction

When discussing smart mobility, there is an ever-increasing presence of autonomous vehicles (AVs) on the roadway and in development. Interest in the design and implementation of AVs increases each year as this innovative technology is applied to new contexts and user groups [1]. While there are many specifics that could be discussed regarding the hardware and function of AVs, this chapter will focus on parents’ opinions of the use of AVs for their teenage children in various contexts and transportation scenarios.

The design and intended use of any vehicle largely depends on the user group the vehicle is targeted at. In the case of AVs, specific applications such as the creation of an innovative personal vehicle or improved long-haul trucking have received attention in recent years [2, 3]. Applications such as a shared autonomous bus (AB) or autonomous shuttle (AS) have also been examined both theoretically and in practice with potential riders [4, 5, 6]. Potential benefits for the implementation of AV on the roadways include an increase in safety and convenience, as well as the possibility of increased mobility [7, 8]. Automation makes the very inaccessible task of driving available to many groups who are currently unable to drive or have limited access to driving such as the elderly, disabled individuals, and children [7]. While some research examines the potential for this mobility increase, one particular area that has yet to be explored thoroughly concerns family mobility and the potential for AVs to increase it.

When considering the transportation of children of all ages in an AV, the relationship between parents and children’s mobility must be examined. Generally, children have a large number of transportation needs such as school, extracurriculars, and social activities. For a number of reasons, parents are reliant on their personal vehicles to meet all of their families transportation needs, often seeing personal vehicle use as the only acceptable way to take their children to activities [9, 10]. In the context of school, the number of children who are able to transport themselves through walking or biking has decreased drastically over time due to increasing travel distances and parent concern regarding traffic dangers [11, 12]. Children who live close to their school are often still driven by a parent out of concern for the child’s safety [13]. Even while many parents report issues managing these rides alongside their work and personal transportation needs, many still elect to transport their children personally [13, 14].

After school, tasks like extracurriculars, medical appointments, and social events add even more trips to a family’s schedule. The use of public transportation options brings up concerns of safety with strangers and the difficulty of navigating some systems, while considering that many of these options do not allow unaccompanied minors [10]. Even rideshare services which utilize a private vehicle, such as Uber, do not allow for the transportation of unaccompanied children [15, 16]. For many families, a personal vehicle is the only available transportation method that meets the need for convenience and flexibility, while also quelling parent safety concerns. The option of utilizing an AV offers a solution to help lighten the load of transportation needs on the parent, while addressing many of their concerns regarding other methods of transportation.

In order to offer this potential solution to parents, AVs must be designed with parent concerns in mind. Prior research has suggested that parents are gatekeepers to this mobility and dictate the methods by which their children travel and therefore must feel that their children are safe in an AV [8, 17, 18]. Some research has been conducted to examine parent opinions of transporting young children in AVs independently which has uncovered several perceived concerns and benefits from parent groups. Prior literature suggests that parents were most interested in the possibility that this presented a convenient option to transport their children when they are unable to drive and that their children could carpool with other families children [8, 18, 19]. Excluding general barriers to acceptance of AV such as hacking, parents were often concerned about child maturity level and the distance of the journey [19]. Reported concerns about child safety included issues of how the AV would respond to threats and ensuring that a child gets to their final destination after exiting the vehicle [8].

Additionally, issues of technological acceptance and social desirability may play a role in parents’ standpoint on transporting their children in AVs [20, 21]. Previous research suggests that children influence parent’s decisions to adopt digital technologies [22]. Adoption of technology refers to an individual deciding to make use of a technology in their lives [23]. In this case, early adoption would refer to individuals who decide to use new technologies before the majority of the population. Parents who identify with this concept of early adoption may be more likely to make use of AVs, as they are an emerging technology.

When considering child transportation, teenagers present a unique challenge. Teenagers have more transportation needs than young children, as many have the addition of a work schedule and increased social obligations, but many are able to drive themselves after the age of 15 depending on the state. Despite this vastly different scenario, there is no research solely focused on transporting teenagers in AVs. Due to their ability to become licensed, it may be thought that teenagers have a lesser need for AVs than young children, but teenagers would also benefit from this technology in unique ways.

One way that parents overcome traditional barriers to child mobility is encouraging their teenagers to receive learner’s permits. Whether parents are busy or simply do not want to drive their older children around, learning to drive removes the need for a parent to be involved in their transportation. This also creates another driver in the family to transport younger children or individuals in the family who are unable to drive. Unfortunately, teenagers are among the most high-risk drivers. Some of this is due to lack of experience, but teenagers are also more likely to exhibit risk-taking behavior than their adult counterparts [24, 25]. CDC data collected from 2016 to 2017 shows that 16 year-old drivers were 1.5 times more likely to have an accident per mile driven than drivers in the 18–19 year-old category [26]. While some may attribute this to driving experience, it has also been found that teenagers who waited longer to obtain their learner’s permits were shown to exhibit less risky driving behavior [27]. This suggests that the difference in driving behavior and accident rates are due to more than just experience gained. Adoption of AV transportation would lessen the need for these teenagers to get licensed as soon as they are of age while still offering independent mobility.

Teenagers who have already been licensed would also benefit from this technology, as they fall under the same high accident and risky driving behavior statistics. In the case of these teenagers, or teenagers who would still like to get their license and use an AV, this would create a unique group of users who are qualified to drive the vehicle should an emergency arise that requires a driver. Parents may also feel safer transporting young children in AVs if an older, teenaged sibling is there to monitor the ride, enforce safety rules, and ensure that the younger child reaches their destination. Overall, the use of personal AVs for transporting teenagers would greatly increase the entire family’s mobility. To make this a reality for families, the needs and wants of parents must be addressed first.

The current study is an attempt to begin to understand parent opinions on transporting teenagers in AVs unaccompanied. Parent willingness will be measured, along with data regarding their child’s transportation needs and driving habits. Additionally, parent opinions on teenagers using AV as a way to delay the need to drive will be examined.

2. Methods

2.1 Data collection

Participants were recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk to take a survey hosted on Qualtrics from January 5th to February 7th, 2022. They were required to be between the ages of 18 and 99 years old, live in the United States of America, and be the parent of at least one child above the age of thirteen to participate in the study. Compensation was provided (4 USD per valid, complete response). This research was approved by the author’s university Institutional Review Board.

Of the initial 315 responses, 38 participants were removed due to not meeting the participant criteria or declining to participate at the informed consent stage of the questionnaire. An additional 50 responses were removed due to failure of attention checks such as “What is the current month?” or “Please respond no to this question.” Lastly, a final 34 participants were removed due to responding to the survey questions for a child that was not within the acceptable age range of 13–19 years old. A total of 191 valid responses were used for the analysis.

2.2 Questionnaire development

2.2.1 Parent demographics

Before beginning the demographic section, participants were asked to confirm that they met the criteria to participate and agree to the terms laid out by an electronic informed consent form. Then, participants were asked to first answer a set of demographic questions regarding themselves. Parent demographic questions included age, sex, gender, ethnicity, and education level. Participants were also asked if they held a valid driver’s license, which state this license was issued in, how many years of driving experience the participant had, and how many accidents they have caused. These questions were asked to gather information regarding the participants’ driving experience.

2.2.2 Early adopters and autonomous vehicle opinions

Participants were next asked to answer a set of questions regarding their general opinions about AVs. Willingness to adopt new technologies plays a role in opinions of AVs, as it is a relatively new innovation [23]. Parents were given a description of an early adopter of technology and then were asked if they considered themselves to be an early adopter. A description of AVs was given to define and frame the concept for the duration of the study [28]. Participants were then asked how familiar they were with AVs, how useful they found them, how safe they felt AVs were, and how likely they were to ride in one. Lastly, they were asked how likely they would be to purchase an AV if cost was no issue. The phrasing of this question aims to understand which participants would be inclined to purchase an AV if the issue of cost was removed, as this is one of the larger barriers to adoption [29].

2.2.3 Teenager demographics

Parents were asked to answer the next section with information regarding their teenager. If the parent had more than one teenager, they were instructed to choose one to answer the questions for. Information was then collected regarding the demographics of the teenager such as sex, gender, ethnicity, and age. It was then asked what type of license this child had, if they held one and which state this was issued in. Years of driving experience and number of accidents were asked as well. Parents were then asked to subjectively rate their child’s driving performance on a 5-point scale ranging from “far below average” to “far above average.”

Having an older child who is able to drive has the potential to help increase the ability to meet a family’s mobility needs. For this reason, parents were also asked if their child’s ability to drive is helpful for meeting the family’s transportation needs. Additionally, the number of vehicles a family has is relative to the number of drivers in the household with some families having as many vehicles as drivers [30]. Therefore, it was asked if the child has a designated vehicle to use when driving or if they would be using a car that would otherwise be used by the parent. In the case of the latter option, this indicates a potential need for more options for mobility within the family. Lastly, the parent was asked to rate how often their child needed transportation to various activities per week, regardless of how this transportation is achieved, Activities including school, work, extracurriculars, and others were rated on a 5-point scale ranging from “Never” to “5+ times a week”.

2.2.4 Willingness to use

In the final section of the survey, parents were asked several questions to indicate their willingness to allow a teenager to use an AV in various contexts without a parent present. This included different destinations as well as different statuses of licensing, such as a learner’s permit or a full license. As many parents have more than one child, questions were also posed to gauge willingness to allow younger children to ride with a teenager in an AV unaccompanied by an adult. Parents were then asked if they would prefer for their child to wait to learn to drive until they are older if AVs were a readily available alternative for them. The final question gave a brief explanation of a take-over request, which occurs when an AV needs competent human driver to take over the task of driving due to an unexpected situation [31]. They were then asked if they would feel comfortable letting their child ride unattended in an AV if take-over request training were included in the curriculum to get the learner’s permit.

2.3 Data analysis

Data cleaning was conducted using R. JASP was used to examine demographic information and descriptives of the sample. It was also used to conduct Chi-Square tests regarding early adopter status, perceived safety of AVs, and delayed licensing for teenage drivers. The Chi-Square statistic is used to analyze whether there is a statistically significant difference between the expected frequencies and the observed frequencies in one or more categories between groups in a contingency table. If significant, this test suggests that the distributions across categories and between groups are truly and significantly different [32].

3. Results

3.1 Parent sample characteristics

Of the valid 191 responses, just over half of the sample were male (53.40%). As for ethnicity, 72.78% of the participants were White, 12.57% were Asian, and 6.28% were Black or African American, 4.71% of participants identified as Mixed or Other, 2.09% were American Indian or Alaskan Native, 1.05% were Hispanic or Latino, and 0.52% were Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander.

Education levels varied, with the largest grouping being a bachelor’s degree (52.88%), followed by an associate degree and a high school graduate, diploma or the equivalent (11.52% each). About one tenth (10.99%) of the sample held a master’s degree and 8.90% held some college credit. The smallest two groups included 2.62% holding a doctorate and 1.57% having trade, technical, or vocational training.

All participants were licensed drivers, with an average of 21.74 years of driving experience (SD = 9.35). When asked about the number of accidents they have personally caused, nearly half of the participants responded with none (47.64%). Less than 3.68% of respondents reported causing more than 2 accidents in their lifetime.

3.2 Teenager sample characteristics

The average age of the 191 teenagers that participants responded for was 15.75 years old (SD = 1.90). Slightly more than half (57.07%) of the sample was male. They also had a very similar breakdown of ethnicities as the parent group.

As some of the participants’ children were not yet of legal driving age, 25.13% (n = 48) of the teenage sample consisted of non-drivers, 49.74% (n = 95) had their learner’s permit or equivalent provisional license and the remaining 25.13% (n = 48) were fully licensed drivers (Figure 1). Among these teenagers, there was an average of 0.97 years of driving experience, with a standard deviation of 1.47 years (Figure 2). In parent’s subjective report of their child’s driving performance, over half of participants rated their child as an average driver as seen in Figure 3 (52.88%, n = 101). Participants also reported that 85.23% (n = 164) of the teenage sample had never caused an accident (Figure 4).

Figure 1.

Teenager license status.

Figure 2.

Number of years of driving experience for teenagers.

Figure 3.

Parent rating of driving performance for teenagers.

Figure 4.

Number of accidents teenagers have caused.

When asked if their child’s ability to drive helps the family’s overall transportation needs, many parents “somewhat agreed” (36.65%, n = 70) or “strongly agreed” (20.94%, n = 40) that it was helpful to them. Parents were also asked if their child has their own personal vehicle (28.27%, n = 54), shares with siblings (5.24%, n = 10), or uses a vehicle that would otherwise be used by a parent (51.83%, n = 99); 11.52% (n = 22) of the sample indicated that their teenager typically used other vehicles outside of the immediate family when driving.

Finally, participants were asked if they would prefer for their child to wait to learn to drive until they are older if they could use an AV to retain the same level of mobility: 31.94% (n = 61) of parents said “yes,” 50.26% (n = 96) said “no,” and 17.28% (n = 33) were unsure (Figure 5).

Figure 5.

Participant responses to delayed licensing.

3.3 Early adoption and autonomous vehicle opinions

Participants were asked a number of questions regarding their familiarity with AV as well as if they considered themselves to be early adopters. All responses fell on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from positive to negative, in relation to the nature of the question. When asked about usefulness, 80% of participants responded with “somewhat useful” (n = 114) or “extremely useful” (n = 40). Respondents also largely felt that AVs were safe, with 89 saying “somewhat safe” and 23 saying “extremely safe.” When asked how familiar they were with AVs, a large number of participants reported being at least moderately familiar with the technology as seen in Figure 6 (n = 88).

Figure 6.

Perceived familiarity with AV.

Participants were then asked if they themselves would likely be riding in an AV. The responses were diverse: 40 participants felt that they were extremely likely to be users, while 72 felt that it was somewhat likely; 22 chose the neutral category of neither likely nor unlikely and 38 felt that it would be somewhat unlikely. Only 18 individuals felt that it would be extremely unlikely for them to make use of an AV. Lastly, respondents were asked if they would be likely to purchase an AV if cost were no object. The results were the least varied of all the questions, with 52 “extremely likely,” 53 “somewhat likely,” 24 neutral responses, 33 “somewhat unlikely” and 29 “extremely unlikely” responses.

In addition to these AV related questions, participants were asked if they would consider themselves to be an early adopter of technology. As seen in Figure 7, 95 individuals responded with “probably yes” and 23 with “definitely yes,” resulting in 61.78% of participants identifying with the concept of an early adopter of technology.

Figure 7.

Perceived early adopter status.

3.4 Comparison of parent willingness

A chi-square test showed significant differences in frequency distributions across participants self-reported early adopter status and their willingness to transport their licensed teenager in an AV (χ² (16, N = 190) = 31.97, p = 0.010).

As seen in Table 1, a large number of parents who were unsure of their early adopter status (“might or might not”) were also fairly neutral on their willingness with 40% of this group selecting “neither comfortable nor uncomfortable” with transporting their teen this way. Interestingly, of the respondents who rated themselves as probably being early adopters (“probably yes”) there was quite a large divide between those who reported being “somewhat comfortable” (n = 32) with the idea and those who reported “somewhat uncomfortable” (n = 25). Overall, those who identified more with being an early adopter were more likely to feel comfortable with AV transportation.

Source	Definitely not		Probably not		Might or might not		Probably yes		Definitely yes		Χ^2	V
	n	%	n	%	n	%	n	%	n	%
Extremely uncomfortable	4	15.39	7	26.92	3	11.54	11	42.31	1	3.85	31.969	0.205
Somewhat uncomfortable	4	8.70	7	15.22	5	10.87	25	54.35	5	10.87
Neither comfortable or uncomfortable	0	0.00	4	13.33	12	40.00	11	36.67	3	10.00
Somewhat comfortable	1	1.175	8	14.04	10	17.54	32	56.14	6	10.53
Extremely comfortable	0	0.00	2	6.45	6	19.36	16	51.61	7	22.58

Table 1.

Frequencies and Chi-Square result for early adopter status & parent willingness with licensed child (N = 190).

p = 0.010.

Additionally, the perceived safety of AVs and parent willingness to use them for licensed teens were not equally distributed (χ² (16, N = 190) = 156.94, p < 0.001). Table 2 shows that participants who felt that AV is “extremely safe” felt “extremely comfortable” or “somewhat comfortable” with using the AVs except for one participant. Those who felt that AV was “somewhat safe” also had high rates of willingness with 52 participants feeling “somewhat comfortable” or “extremely comfortable.” In line with this, those who fell into the unsafe categories showed a tendency to be more uncomfortable with the idea of using this technology for their teenager’s transportation needs.

Source	Extremely safe		Somewhat safe		Neither safe nor unsafe		Somewhat unsafe		Extremely unsafe		Χ^2	V
	n	%	n	%	n	%	n	%	n	%
Extremely uncomfortable	1	3.85	3	11.54	1	3.85	12	46.15	9	34.62	156.94	0.454
Somewhat uncomfortable	0	0.00	22	47.83	8	17.39	15	32.61	1	2.17
Neither comfortable nor uncomfortable	0	0.00	12	40.00	13	43.33	5	16.67	0	0.00
Somewhat comfortable	5	8.77	41	71.93	3	5.26	7	12.28	1	1.75
Extremely comfortable	17	54.84	11	35.48	2	6.45	0	0.00	1	3.23

Table 2.

Frequencies and Chi-Square result for perceived safety & parent willingness with licensed child (N = 190).

p < 0.001.

Lastly, parent willingness was compared to parent’s desire for their teen to wait to learn to drive if they could mitigate their mobility with an AV. There were significant group differences (χ² (8, N = 190) = 18.93, p = 0.015), with most parents falling into the “somewhat comfortable” (n = 57) or “somewhat uncomfortable” (n = 46) responses regardless of whether they felt their child should wait to learn to drive or not (Table 3).

Willingness	Yes		No		Maybe		Χ^2	V
	n	%	n			%
Extremely uncomfortable	6	23.08	19	73.08	1	3.85	18.93	0.223
Somewhat uncomfortable	14	30.44	24	52.17	8	17.39
Neither comfortable nor uncomfortable	6	20.00	13	43.33	11	36.67
Somewhat comfortable	22	38.60	24	42.11	11	19.30
Extremely comfortable	13	41.94	16	51.61	2	6.45

Table 3.

Frequencies and Chi-Square result for delayed licensing & parent willingness with licensed child (N = 190).

p < 0.015.

4. Discussion

The current study was a cursory attempt at discovering the factors that contribute to parent willingness to transport teenagers in AVs unaccompanied. Overall, participants reported being moderately familiar with AV (46.07%) and generally perceived it to be safe (58.94%) and useful (80.63%). Respondents were in less agreement over if they would be likely to use an AV personally or likely to purchase an AV if cost were no issue. Although many parent participants (n = 118) reported identifying as an early adopter of technology, many were not in favor of their teenagers delaying their licensing by using AVs as a means of transportation.

When early adopter status was examined, results were congruent with previous research that those who self-identified as early adopters would display more willingness to make use of this technology [23]. The portion of participants who did consider themselves to be early adopters but still expressed discomfort for using AVs (22.11%) suggests that those who are more likely to adopt technology earlier than their peers may still have reservations about AV use specifically. Additionally, the group of participants who rated themselves neutrally on either early adoption status and willingness (34.74%) suggests that a large portion of the parents surveyed are not familiar enough with the technology to consider using it.

One of the key elements which contributes to parent acceptance of AVs identified in previous research is perceived safety [8, 18, 19]. Due to this, the current finding that participants who felt that AVs were safe (58.95%) were more inclined to let their children travel unattended in them is expected. There are still portions of the sample who were neutral or hesitant regardless of their opinion that AVs are generally safe which suggests that the safety is not the only factor which may inform parent decision making.

Due to the literature that discusses the risk taking behavior and lack of experience of teen drivers, it was hypothesized that parents may be in favor of using AV as a means of delaying the need for teenagers to become licensed at a young age [22, 24, 25, 26]. Interestingly, this was not the case. Many parents still wanted their child to learn to drive regardless of AV presence. Even when considering parent willingness to transport their child in an AV, several parents who were in favor said that they would still want their child to get licensed. Based on participant feedback collected at the end of the survey, several parents who generally viewed AV favorably still wanted their child to learn to drive. They felt that it is an important skill which is crucial to learn at this age.

This study was limited in its sample size due to large numbers of failed attention checks and individuals responding for children who did not meet the age criteria. Additionally, there was likely a lack of uniformity in participant interpretations of AVs. While survey questions were posed to gain insight into participants AV opinions, an individual’s level of prior knowledge and experience with an emerging technology is difficult to ascertain [8, 18]. Efforts were made to include descriptions of AVS and early adopter status, but it is difficult to provide a complete image of these subjects in a few sentences. Ultimately, this is a preliminary effort which hopes to inform directions for future studies in AV acceptance.

5. Conclusion

This chapter focused on exploring parent opinions and willingness to transport teenagers in AVs independently. Results indicate that parents have varying opinions of transporting their teenagers in AVs. Early adopter status did express more comfort with using the technology, parents would still like their children to learn to drive traditional vehicles. These findings contribute to our understanding of the perceived AV usage, willingness, and adoption [28], as well as, the unique barriers from a family perspective which are largely centered around concerns about the AVs ability to safely transport children [8, 18, 19, 20]. Based on the findings, several suggestions for future research can be made. Firstly, an exploration into potential differences between parent’s general ratings of AV safety compared to ratings of perceived safety specifically for transporting teenagers. In future iterations of this question, the focus can be shifted away from the idea of delaying one’s licensing to using AV as a supplemental tool during more stressful or complex driving scenarios. Also, different ridership scenarios should be considered when a licensed teen is present or absent with younger siblings or other family members. Finally, more exploration is needed into early adoption of AVs specifically, as barriers may differ from general adoption of technology. We believe that these topics are important as we embrace AV technologies and the impact of AV-enhanced mobility on vulnerable road users, such as teenagers.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Kyle Hickerson for his advice for statistical analysis.