Americans see driverless cars coming, but most want to keep control behind the wheel (TNND) — More Americans expect driverless cars to become commonplace within the next five years, but interest in owning an autonomous vehicle remains fairly low. Just 19% of people polled by Gallup said they would personally own or lease one, unchanged from Gallup’s previous survey in 2018. Gallup’s updated polling on autonomous vehicles, released Tuesday, showed about two-thirds of Americans expect to see driverless cars commonly roaming the roadways within the next decade, including 31% expecting them to become routine within five years. In the 2018 survey, 53% of people expected self-driving cars to become ubiquitous within a decade, including 19% expecting their widespread use within five years. Younger adults are more likely than older adults to say they’d own an autonomous vehicle. But even among adults under 50, just around one in five say they’d opt for a driverless car. “Yeah, I'm not surprised at all by these statistics,” said Jameson Wetmore, an associate professor in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society at Arizona State University. “And actually, if I was to invest in automated vehicles, I'd be pretty pleased about these statistics, because the goal is not to replace 100% of American cars next year with these things. It's to slowly ease them in and develop a transition. And it's a pretty good place to be for the transition.” Gallup said just one in 10 Americans has ever ridden in a driverless car. Wetmore said most Americans have never even seen a car without a human at the wheel going down the street. Wetmore lives in the Phoenix area, which is a test ground for Waymo robotaxis. “In Phoenix right now, I'd say they are commonly used,” he said. “So, I