Latest / Auto Collabs / Most People Don’t Want Self-Driving Cars. They Want Safer Ones | Public Policy Day 2026

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Most People Don’t Want Self-Driving Cars. They Want Safer Ones | Public Policy Day 2026 · Auto Collabs

• 0:00
  On this episode of Auto Collabs, we're live at the Washington, D.C. Auto Show for Public Policy Day 2026, brought to you by our friends at Safe Ride.
• 0:09
  [upbeat music] All right, we're here with our friend Will Bright, Safe Ride AI, at Public Policy Day. Um, you have this device.
• 0:19
  We just got out of a Toyota Corolla that was equipped with this with Mike Stanton, um, for a little jaunt around, and we got to see the technology first and foremost. It was amazing. Well, thank you.
• 0:29
  Yeah, I mean, it was great. We got to stop at some red lights. We got to stay in the middle of some lanes. We got to not, not... We got to avoid some pedestrians. Exactly. It beat Dallas. Plenty of them in DC.
• 0:38
  [laughs] That's the best. Yeah. Avoid some pedestrians. Avoid some pedestrians. It's perfect. We did.
• 0:41
  I mean- Uh, y- We've, we've been having the conversation today, throughout the day, we got to be on the, uh, uh, on the main stage, uh, really around not just, you know, is autonomous, uh, important, but what is autonomy, and what do people really want?
• 0:54
  So give us a little bit more, uh, like, let's start with some background. Like, let's clarify what autonomy really is for people or, or what we're calling autonomy.
• 1:03
  And then you also give some context on the stuff that you've been discovering.
• 1:06
  So we'll dive into that in a second, but give everyone some context 'cause everybody hears these levels and, and it, you've done such a good job of explaining it. Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:15
  There's, there's sort of five levels of autonomy as the SAE explains it. Um, level one would be any type of basic assistance to your driving, like cruise control that you've known for years, right?
• 1:26
  Um, we get up to level two in the world of things like adaptive cruise. And level two extends pretty far, all the way up until the point where it can keep you in the center of the lane.
• 1:36
  Um, but it doesn't extend to your ability as a driver to no longer be paying attention or driving the vehicle. It's all assistance all the way up until level three.
• 1:45
  Once you cross that level two to level three barrier, that's where things get a little bit interesting. Hmm.
• 1:50
  Because at level three, theoretically, you as the driver don't need to be driving the car during select circumstances, maybe on certain roads or in certain corridors.
• 2:01
  Level four and level five are about the expansion of that lack of attention that you have to place.
• 2:06
  So like a Waymo, where you're in the back seat, you have no control over anything, that would be level five, which is very impressive. Wow.
• 2:14
  But like you were talking about a minute ago, it's about, you know, sort of what people want and what can be made ubiquitous, right?
• 2:19
  The great things about autonomy and, and driver assistance is that we can stop the most catastrophic outcomes that are associated with driving, like collisions with other cars or collisions with pedestrians, right?
• 2:30
  Uh, the problem isn't driving. Broadly, people can drive. They just don't always drive great. [laughs] And [laughs] when they don't drive great- Understatement...
• 2:39
  uh, that's when you get disproportionate catastrophic situations. And so, that's kind of the baseline. Like, everyone wants a safer car. Everyone wants a more convenient car.
• 2:48
  Some people would love it if there could be a car that would fully drive itself. Right. But let's focus on making the first part, the part that people really want, ubiquitous.
• 2:58
  Well, and go back to, because the company that you, uh, that, that you had and sold before, uh, Safe Ride, the main purpose of it was to discover users that wanted something, right?
• 3:10
  Yeah, talk about that company a little bit. So talk about that and how you, like, learned to curate what the public thought. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, my entire life, I mean, I started that company when I was 18.
• 3:22
  So everything that I've done has been around analyzing what people actually want.
• 3:27
  You know, product designers, people who are in design roles at companies, not to speak poorly of design, but, uh, they tend to have really strong opinions about what they believe people want.
• 3:36
  Um, and sometimes it's hard to draw the line between what people want, what you believe people want, and, and what you just personally think is really cool.
• 3:44
  Um, some great things come out of that direct design process, like Porsche 911, right? Great direct design thing, beautiful form, beautiful car.
• 3:52
  Um, but this is also why consumer products have a, you know, a 90% failure rate. You know, Sony puts out 10 headphones in a given year. They know nine of them not gonna make it. Really?
• 4:01
  One of them is gonna be-- Yeah, that's, that's the average. Wow. Um, yeah. In a given product line, 90% of the products will fail, and the one product will pay for all of those failures- Plus profit, yes...
• 4:10
  because that's just the challenge, right? Um, then along came human-centered design in the '90s with IDEO. Uh, these guys were like, "Wait a minute.
• 4:17
  Instead of doing what we think is cool, why don't we look at how a person actually interfaces with a thing-" [laughs] "... and then think about designing around that?" I can't believe that's such a new idea. Sh- yeah.
• 4:26
  It's only, it's only 30 years old. Um, [laughs] and then, uh, when I came- It's a millennial. It's a millennial. Exact- It is. It is.
• 4:33
  Uh, and then what I kinda came along with was community-centered design, the idea that instead of looking at one individual as the unit, we should look at a community of people around a given type of product as the unit and study what the value system of that community is, and then make decisions based on that.
• 4:49
  Because, you know, individuals, right?
• 4:51
  If you pick the wrong person, they might happen to be someone that uses something in a really strange, unique way, and then you design it that way, or that person has opinions that are just not representative- They're an outlier, right...
• 5:00
  the broader whole, right?
• 5:01
  Um, and so my whole previous company, Drop.com, was about analyzing community discussion, and then based on the community's principles and value systems, deriving what they really wanted as a whole and then making those products.
• 5:15
  Um, it was very successful. We shipped about 5 million units of products, you know, designed about 200 different products that way. Wow.
• 5:21
  But that process of analyzing a community of people, determining their value system, and then designing around that is exactly what led to the productization of Safe Ride. You know, the need was there.
• 5:31
  What happened with my friend Michael and what happens with people every eight minutes on the road, like, clearly there's the problem. Mm-hmm. But what is the solution? How do you get to it?
• 5:38
  Well, you need to start by analyzing all of the discussions around driving and advanced safety features because if you just make what you think is the solution, then, mm, you got a 10% shot at it, right?
• 5:48
  Versus if you read what every single person is saying online about what features they wish existed, you get to some pretty clear points. Everyone wants a safer car.
• 5:59
  Everyone wants a car that is more convenient.What you don't see a lot of is everyone talking about how they want a fully self-driving car. Uh, don't get me wrong, I, personally I think it's great.
• 6:09
  But the reality is that everyone wants a more convenient car, everyone wants a safer car. Mm-hmm.
• 6:13
  So how do we make all the cars that exist at all levels of affordability, at all model years that are popular and on the road safer and more convenient?
• 6:22
  And that's what led to the productization that we've got in our hands. So cool. Where do you see, where do you see the fastest adoption of this technology?
• 6:31
  Yeah, I mean, really it comes down to people who right now know about this technology. They know that cars can have capabilities to stop and avoid catastrophic circumstances.
• 6:42
  Um, but you know, they just can't afford a $70,000, $80,000, $100,000 car, right? And, and that's because typically cars that have this type and this level of technology are the higher trim models.
• 6:56
  So it's not, you can't just usually add one feature. It's like, no, it's part of this technology package or this convenient... Whatever it is, and it usually bumps the price of a vehicle substantially. Exactly.
• 7:05
  Um, or if it's a used car, you know, the old- the further back you go, you just can't have it because it didn't exist. So it's like kind of two things.
• 7:13
  Um, so the one of the, or the only way you're distributing this is not direct to consumer. It's through a dealership network, and that can actually be added to either a used car or a new car? Correct. Yeah, absolutely.
• 7:25
  I mean, a lot of the-- It was funny, when I started the company, I thought that the used car market would be the, the fastest adoption.
• 7:30
  The dealers that we were selling to would be like, "Great, we're gonna put this in all of our used inventory." And they did say that. They do wanna put it in all their used inventory- [laughs]... which is great. Right.
• 7:37
  But the response was, "Oh, can, can we get this on the Nissan Ariya? Can we get this onto this new car? Can we get this on this new car?" And I'm like, "Yeah. Doesn't the crossover EV have some type of camera in it?"
• 7:46
  Right. And the answer is mm, uh- If you buy an expensive enough one. Maybe. But even- Maybe... even some of them just, just- Don't have it yet... it's not even possible for- It's just not ready yet. Nope. Wow.
• 7:55
  It's just not there. Um, and so this, this is what, this is what it does. It brings it to any new or used vehicle that's on your lot. And how is it- It's incredible. How is it? So it's, uh, sold as an add-on? Yeah.
• 8:06
  Yeah, exactly. Or included? Well, it's, uh, it's... In, in the case of most of the dealers that we're working with, they're focused on preloading it, so it's a front-end product.
• 8:12
  Um, in some cases they're focused on selling it in the F&I office, but that's mostly a function of the operational structure of that dealer group. You know, some dealers have a really well-developed preload program.
• 8:21
  Right. Some have a really well-developed F&I program. So you can go either way, but for our sort of main wave of adoption, uh, the primary thing is dealers that have a strong preload program.
• 8:33
  'Cause when you're explaining- Mm... it to customers, it's much easier to be able to say that, "Yeah, uh, whatever car you came in that you wanted to buy, it has this." It has this. It has this.
• 8:41
  And then let them experience it on the test drive. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I mean, and you know, you control it through all the car's existing cruise control functions. There's no new patterns of behavior.
• 8:51
  There's no, like, extra buttons added or things to press. That's huge. Wow. Especially, you know, I think of, like, my wife doesn't wanna learn anything else when it comes to driving. No, nobody does. Right?
• 9:00
  And there's some people. Some people like playing. Oh, sure. I'm not one of those people. Five, 5%. It's a small percentage. I literally have never read an auto- Yeah. Yeah... like a manual.
• 9:07
  No, you figure it out as you go. I'm just like wipers, headlights. Oh, I can... Like, it'll be two years in, I'm like, "Oh, it can do that? That's fine. I don't need to know."
• 9:14
  [laughs] And so, but yeah, but controlling it through the cruise is a big deal. And so,
• 9:18
  um, we were talking a little bit, and I wanna talk about this as well, because affordability is such a h- hot topic that we're talking about a lot.
• 9:24
  Uh, there is actually some insurance implication for people who have this installed in a vehicle. Absolutely, yeah. Uh, insurers already provide discounts for vehicles that have higher levels of safety equipment. Yes.
• 9:35
  Uh, vehicles that have vision systems that can see a pedestrian and stop a car get the highest levels of discount across the board. Uh, bringing this into the car
• 9:45
  enables that type of recognition and the reduction of your insurance costs. So we're in talks with a bunch of different insurance companies to enable that.
• 9:54
  The savings can be upwards of, you know, $300 to $500 a year- Wow. Wow... depending on what vehicle you're insuring and how much the cost of a collision would be versus, you know, your ability as a driver.
• 10:04
  That's substantial. That's a big deal. Well, that, I mean, that starts to cover the cost of the product, the cost of the subscription over a two, three-year timeframe.
• 10:11
  Uh, and it, and it makes sense for the consumer because they're safer, and they're, they're getting a value on insurance. It's like a win-win situation. And there's a convenience. It's way easier when Level 2...
• 10:20
  I mean, anyone who's had Level 2 knows it. Yeah. Like, you start get- getting used to just having it activated. And it just takes a little bit of pressure off the driving experience.
• 10:28
  Not that you have to pay it, you still have to pay full attention. Yeah. But- You're still looking at the road. Right But the, the, the lack of fatigue from highway driving- The cognitive fatigue that happens...
• 10:36
  Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's, it's one of these things that you don't fully appreciate until you experience it.
• 10:40
  But yeah, it's, you know, driving on the highway for three hours, you don't have to get out of the car and be wondering why I'm so tired.
• 10:47
  You're tired because of the constant vigilance of every single, you know, every second and a half- Microcorrection. Yeah... having to make a micro adjustment to not die. It's, it's [laughs] right?
• 10:56
  That, that's what it comes down to. Yeah. [laughs] I mean, I remember when I first started driving, how crazy it was. I would think about that when I was driving- Like a-...
• 11:01
  where it's like, if I didn't do something every fi- like fifth of a second, I, I would be toast. This car would do that. And, you know, so it's just like- Yeah.
• 11:08
  The level of activity required in the body and the mind to be able to handle that, and now this takes some of that active load off so that you can be present in the most, most impactful moments. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
• 11:17
  It reduces the cost of paying attention. Yeah. Amazing. Well, well, uh, really just so cool to see what you're doing and the way that you're attacking, uh, the consumer sentiment around autonomy.
• 11:28
  I think it's a, it's a really, uh, diligent way of going about it. And thank for, thank you for partnering with us to make sure the content of today could go great. Oh, my pleasure. I mean, that's the thing.
• 11:37
  Everyone wants a safer car. That's what we're trying to enable. Awesome.