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Exploring the Needs, Preferences, and Concerns of Persons with Visual Impairments Regarding Autonomous Vehicles

Published: 21 April 2020 Publication History

Abstract

Fully autonomous or “self-driving” vehicles are an emerging technology that may hold tremendous mobility potential for blind or visually impaired persons who are currently unable to drive a conventional motor vehicle. Despite the considerable potential of self-driving vehicle technology to address this mobility issue, however, the needs and preferences of persons with visual disabilities regarding this technology have been insufficiently investigated. In this article, we present the results of two studies that are focused on exploring the needs, preferences, and concerns of persons with visual impairments as it relates to self-driving vehicles. Study one investigated user acceptance, concerns, and willingness to buy partially and fully automated vehicles using a 39-question Internet-based survey distributed in the United States to visually impaired respondents (n = 516). Study two explores the opinions of 38 participants who are blind and low vision, using focus group methodology, regarding emerging self-driving vehicle technology. Collectively our findings suggest that while persons with visual impairments may be optimistic regarding the potential for enhanced mobility and independence that may result from the emergence of self-driving vehicles, concerns exist regarding the implementation of this technology that have been largely unexplored and under investigated.

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    cover image ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing
    ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing  Volume 13, Issue 1
    March 2020
    121 pages
    ISSN:1936-7228
    EISSN:1936-7236
    DOI:10.1145/3396729
    Issue’s Table of Contents
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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    Publication History

    Published: 21 April 2020
    Revised: 01 July 2019
    Accepted: 01 January 2019
    Received: 01 April 2018
    Published in TACCESS Volume 13, Issue 1

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    Author Tags

    1. Autonomous vehicles
    2. accessibility
    3. self-driving vehicles
    4. visual impairment

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