Factors Influencing Driver’s Psychological Vulnerability Judgment When Sharing the Road With Driverless Vehicles

To determine whether drivers of manned vehicles sharing the road with driverless vehicles believe they are in a vulnerable state and to identify the factors that contribute to their feeling of “driver’s psychological vulnerability judgment”, this study conducted a questionnaire survey. The survey collected information on the attitudes, perceived usefulness, trust, perceived risk, and demographic characteristics of drivers in a hypothetical situation where they drive on the same road as driverless vehicles. The aim of the survey was to identify areas where drivers feel more vulnerable to poor psychological judgment. A total of 945 valid questionnaires were collected through the Credamo questionnaire survey platform. The results indicated that 43.7% of the respondents believed they would be in a vulnerable state in mixed traffic competition, while 30.2% of respondents did not know if they would feel vulnerable. Moreover, women, people with higher education, those with more aggressive driving personalities, older people, and those with more driving experience were less inclined to think they would be in a vulnerable state. Attitude, trust, and perceived usefulness had positive impacts on the driver’s psychological vulnerability judgment, while perceived risk had a negative impact. Therefore, early promotion of driverless technology should target people with higher education, more driving experience, older age, and more aggressive driving personality. The focus should be on attitudes toward this technology, as well as perceived usefulness, trust, and perceived risk.