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A survey conducted by the College of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University has found a strong interest in the introduction of parental controls in driverless cars.

The poll, of 1000 people aged between 18 and 70, found 84% wanting to control the speed limit for teenage drivers, adhere to a curfew time, and limit the number of passengers in the car. 61% of respondents said they would like a control feature to limit the geographic range the car will travel, while a similar number (60%) wanted a text display unit between parent and driver.

The survey defined a self-driving car as “having sensors and computing technology that allows the car to safely travel without a driver controlling the steering wheel, gas and brake pedal.”

It’s worth noting that the technology behind self-driving cars has got an awful lot of hurdles to overcome – Google’s patent for vehicles to understand cyclists’ hand signals, revealed earlier this month, is still at its most embryonic stage.

Even though the utopian future of self-driving cars is of a world where no errors are made on the road, these implementations are not a surprise given the statistics around young drivers. In the UK, drivers aged 17 to 19 only make up 1.5% of licence holders, but are involved in 12% of fatal and serious crashes.

The youngest age demographic polled were overall in agreement over parental policies. 81% of 18-24 year olds agreed with this option, compared to 91% aged between 66 and 70 and 84% overall. Yet only 54% of people aged 18 to 24 would consider the option of constraining a car’s geographic range.

Do you agree with the survey findings?