Keeping an Eye on Drivers: Survey Exploring Public Acceptance of Driver Monitoring Systems

An online survey of 477 UK drivers investigated attitudes towards a broad range of driver monitoring systems (DMS) – conceptualised as a set of functional capabilities rather than as a singular, unified technology. Acceptability was determined based on Likert scale responses to 62 statements informed by a prior focus group study covering six main scenarios: fatigue, distraction, driving performance, fitness-to-drive, intoxication and data surveillance/sharing. Results indicated significant differences in acceptability across scenarios, with intoxication monitoring rated most acceptable and data sharing and distraction monitoring least acceptable. Participants generally supported monitoring and advisory functions linked to safety, while acceptance declined as system authority increased, particularly for intrusive or autonomy-restricting interventions. Data governance emerged as a key concern, with mixed attitudes towards data storage and sharing, especially beyond the vehicle context. Although age-related differences were observed – older drivers favouring safety-focused monitoring and young drivers showing greater acceptance of AI-driven and data-enabled systems – many differences across individual statements were not statistically significant. Notably, a substantial minority of participants expressed strong resistance to DMS in principle, with up to 18% of respondents rating DMS as ’completely unacceptable’ and up to 31% stating they would be ’extremely unlikely’ to choose a car with such systems. Exploratory factor analysis identified three underlying dimensions shaping attitudes: adaptive driver assistance, behavioural safety enforcement and driving data surveillance, suggesting that acceptance of DMS is driven by perceived safety benefits, preservation of driver autonomy and trust in data governance. The study highlights the importance of designing DMS that prioritise transparency, proportional intervention and privacy to support widespread adoption, and provides a set of 13 design principles to support this ambition.