British motorists seem to be preparing themselves for the arrival of the autonomous car, with 78% stating that they are comfortable with the idea.

Following uSwitch’s discovery that one in two adults do not trust driverless cars, a global survey from the world’s largest vehicle management group, LeasePlan revealed that the UK was the nation fourth most at ease with the concept.

Only surveys in Denmark, where 83% of respondents said that were at ease with the idea of a driverless vehicle, the Netherlands (83%) and Germany (81%) returned more positive results.

Lesley Slater, business development director, LeasePlan UK said that the response of UK respondents was “encouraging to see” given plans announced this week to pilot the technology.

She said: “With plans in place to test bed in Greenwich, London and other projects being given the green light in Coventry and Bristol this new technology, which was once seen as futuristic, is now looking a little nearer reality.”

LeasePlan gathered information from a 3,859 respondents across Europe, Australia, the USA and India on the subject last summer.

Overall, 57% of those surveyed said that they would try being a passenger in a driverless vehicle, despite feeling slightly nervous. A further 14%, predominantly male, would have absolutely no problem at all.

In the UK 16% of respondents were completely fine with being a passenger and 62% said they would feel nervous but still try it.