Moral judgements on human and autonomous drivers’ decisions in unavoidable collisions scenarios

Moral and ethical issues are constantly arising in assessing the perception of autonomous vehicles and their “behaviour” in daily traffic situations. A debated question is how individuals perceive the choices taken by autonomous vehicles (AVs) in life-threatening scenarios. In an online experiment (N = 232) we tested whether the actions taken by an AV or a human driver in realistic road-accident scenarios are judged according to different standards. In addition, multiple factors were manipulated, such as the number of pedestrians crossing the road, the number of occupants inside the vehicle and the outcome of the choice.