Multiple news agencies have indicated that a recent survey has shown that when it comes to car buyers, they are very interested in having safety features like the autonomous emergency braking and pre-crash alerts in their vehicles.

The reports indicate that 49.9 percent of all consumers that participated in the survey selected these features as options they would like to have in their vehicles. Opinion Matters carried out this survey on behalf of Car Safety Rules. Questions concerning pricing, safety and other types of features and functions and standard options were posed to consumers. According to Opinion Matters, only car owners who purchased their new vehicles in the last three years were surveyed. Many new vehicles have received five-star ratings by the Euro NCAP safety testers and still, European consumers decided to investigate and do their own research prior to purchasing the vehicle. About 75 percent of the consumers who were surveyed reported that they understood the safety technologies before they drove out of the lot on their brand new car.

While many surveys in America show that consumers are usually more focused on connectivity features and choose to not rate safety features as important, European consumers seem to place safety on the top of their list of priorities. According to the survey, driver assistance technologies do affect the way people think about their cars and how willing they are to purchase a new vehicle with the features over a vehicle without the safety features.

With the growing concern related to the rising number of traffic accident deaths, surveys like this one are welcome to show automakers that it’s very important to keep on working on devices and new technology that could increase safety. According to the survey, 40.6% of the consumers who were interviewed cited witnessing an accident, being involved in an accident or nearly missing a crash while traveling on a familiar road. Some of the consumers reported losing a family member to a traffic accident. These were all reasons mentioned when asked about their motives behind focusing on purchasing a vehicle with reliable safety technologies.

The survey also showed that about 18.6% of consumers reported becoming a parent a reason behind their purchasing a safer car while safety campaigns were cited by 15.2 % of the surveyed consumers.

According to the research, 10.9 % of motorists chose to buy safer cars because bad winter forced them to own safer vehicles.

About 12 percent of all consumers surveyed said they did not choose a vehicle based on safety technologies and that they had not interest in them.

According to the reports, consumers who reported they would prefer to purchase a car that offers great connectivity features account for only 27.8% of participants. According to 67.2 % of consumers said they believe phones distract drivers enough for them to care about auto connectivity technology.

Half of all consumers surveyed reported that they would be happy if they were able to use an autonomous vehicle as their main transportation for commuting. In spite of the high number of drivers saying they would use the technology, only 15.5 % of the consumers who were surveyed actually mentioned they would ant their next vehicle to offer the autonomous technology.

If you’re interested in learning more about this technology, you can follow this link to read the full report.