Ethical question leaves potential buyers torn over self-driving cars, study says

Faced with two deadly options the public want driverless vehicles to crash rather than hurt pedestrians - unless the vehicle in question is theirs

In catch-22 traffic emergencies where there are only two deadly options, people generally want a self-driving vehicle to, for example, avoid a group of pedestrians and instead slam itself and its passengers into a wall, a new study says. But they would rather not be travelling in a car designed to do that.

The findings of the study, released on Thursday in the journal Science, highlight just how difficult it may be for auto companies to market those cars to a public that tends to contradict itself.