An illustrative example system for developing an autonomous vehicle response includes a simulator that provides an at least visual simulation of a plurality of different situations that may be encountered while driving, a driver input device that allows the driver to respond to the simulation of the plurality of situations in a manner consistent with the driver's driving response to the situations, respectively, and a compute device including at least one processor and data storage associated with the processor. The compute device is configured to determine a profile of the driver based on information from the driver input device regarding the driver's driving responses to the simulation of the situations. The profile is at least temporarily stored in the data storage. The profile provides information for controlling the autonomous vehicle response to an actual situation corresponding to at least one of the simulated situations.