Driverless cars have serious health and safety benefits but the public needs to learn to trust them

From reducing road deaths to cutting emissions, driverless cars promise huge safety benefits, however new research suggests the public are still sceptical. People's concerns around this emerging technology were brought to the fore after an automated vehicle being tested by ride-hailing service Uber killed Elaine Herzberg, 49, in Tempe, a suburb of Phoenix. Later that same month, 38-year-old Walter Huang died in an accident in California after his Tesla, which was operating on autopilot mode at the time, smashed into a median on Highway 101. Tesla co-founder Elon Musk has previously lamented about what he believes is an unfair focus on the mishaps, rather than the benefits, of autonomous vehicles. 'It's super messed up that a Tesla crash resulting in a broken ankle is front page news and the (approximately) 40,000 people who died in US auto accidents alone in past year get almost no coverage,' Musk bemoaned in a tweet bakc in May.