**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, 24–26]. Interestingly, this was not the case. Many parents still wanted their child to learn to drive regardless of AV presence. Even when considering parent

## *Parent Opinions of Automated Vehicles and Young Driver Mobility DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.105531*

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.
