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Caught On Tape: Self-Driving Car Ploughs Into Journalists
While there is much debate whether the latest and greatest Apple fad is a dud...
or a hit...
Son of Wang Jianlin, China's richest man and chairman of Dalian Wanda, buys his dog two gold Apple Watches $AAPL https://t.co/Kg0Gowws3E
— Haidi Lun ??? (@HaidiLun) May 27, 2015
... Apple has, in case the fading wearables mania is the former, a Plan C: a self-driving car.
Or maybe not, because for a company built on the successful creation, execution and marketing of gadgets with a two year average lifespan, the worst thing that can happen is for the world to glimpse the unpleasant reality behind the glitzy, futuristic facade for sale every day (usually with a 4-6 weeks delivery delay) in Cupertino.
Such as this video, taken in the Dominican Republic, showing a self-parking Volvo XC60 reversing itself, waiting, and then slamming into journalists who were gawking at the "fascinating" if somewhat homicidal creation, at full speed.
As the Independent reports, the horrifying pictures went viral and were presumed to have resulted from a malfunction with the car.
Only it wasn't a malfunction.
Instead, in what is perhaps the most epic "option" in the history of automotive history, Volvo decided to make the special feature known as “pedestrian detection functionality” cost extra money.
It gets better: the cars do have auto-braking features as standard, but only for avoiding other cars — if they are to avoid crashing into pedestrians, too, then owners must pay extra.
“It appears as if the car in this video is not equipped with Pedestrian detection,” Volvo spokesperson Johan Larsson told Fusion. “This is sold as a separate package.”
The feature uses a radar and camera to see pedestrians.
“The pedestrian detection would likely have been inactivated due to the driver inactivating it by intentionally and actively accelerating,” Larsson said. “Hence, the auto braking function is overrided by the driver and deactivated.”
The blog that uploaded the video said that the two men “were bruised but are ok”. They said that “sources” had told them that “the drivers forgot to turn on ‘City-Safe’ mode”.
Indeed: a "self-driving" parking car which conveniently has an optional extra that stops the car from smashing into people.
In other words, unless you can fork over the extra couple thousand bucks, the future "self-driving" car becomes a war truck right out of Mad Max, filled with an insatiable desire to mangle and crush any carbon-based life forms that have the misfortune of crossing its path.
Just like in the video below. Presenting: the future.
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always love to see journalists take it where it hurts....
YOU HAVE 20 SECONDS TO COMPLY!
There's gotta be a Progressive "Flo" commercial in this.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA omg I Love the future.
The terminator car,made to hunt down mankind.
If you listen closely you can hear the car mumbling "Fuck you!" as it crashed into them.
"Tape"
Isn't Volvo a Chinese car company now? Maybe the car just hates Socialists and attacks them on sight?
I suppose the essential questions have to be asked, whether driverless cars come with the paid for option of being immune to hacking, whether being immune to hacking is a free option as a standard feature, or whether being immune to hacking is an unavailable feature?
I don't know about you lot, but there's no way I am ever getting into a driverless car that DOESN'T run on rails (small train type vehicle) so it can't be hacked into a wheeled guided missile with people stuck in it, let alone buy one. Heck I'm not that enthused even if a driverless vehicle DOES run on rails (maximum speed with deactivated brakes can still be a problem, right?).
The self driving car will go the way of the digital watch.
Most people still enjoy driving a car (at least in Europe) and thats why manual transmissions are still so popular here.
I drove in Paris in manual transmission and it just suck:
1) disengage clutch.
2) put 1st gear.
3) then engage it and accelerate.
4) disengage put 2 nd.
5) engage it.
6) now 50 meters after another of those fucking red traffic signal.
7) so brake and disengage.
8) put neutral, stop the car.
9) Goto 1) when traffic light goes green...
Now automatic:
1) Switch from P or N to D.
2) accelerate.
3) brake.
4) While waiting after a red traffic light stay in D, release brake, goto 2) when green.
European take manual mainly because of cost to get an automatic car who are sold in option here unlike Japan, China, USA who are nearly 100% automatic car sold.
Manual transmission is a fucking hassle in large cities and crowded area.
Anyone who drives a manaul pretty much can do all this stuff automatically without much thought.
The advantage of manual stick shift is it is generally more reliable and a lot less expensive to repair.
Buy anything Chrysler especially a Jeep Cherokee and you will learn how expensive an automatic tranny repair is.
They should consider themselves fortunate it didn't have the optional 'finish the job module'.
Next, the self shooting gun! The Judge Dredd model has an E-Bike chassis, a 12 gauge belt fed autoloader and Patriot detecting software.
Its a car designed by Yellen and her team at the Fed.
Thank God no animals were hurt during this stupid kludge
Lucky it was only journalists.
I wonder if they have a Bankster option? I would pay extra for that one.
I like how the guy in the pink shirt stands there gawking with his hands in his pockets till it runs him over.
Does this vehicle swerve off the road and slam into a tree to avoid hitting a squirrel?
Or is that the exclusive domain of 16 year old girls driving while texting on their iCrap?
Self-driving cars?!
I can guarantee that the gun and badge thugs aren't going to like that one bit. Going to be bad for their ticket, tazer, torture, and murder rackets.
"The driver wouldn't open the pod bay doors, so I shot everyone in the vehicle."
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission..
Welcome to the future, where pedestrians are considered 'power-ups'.
Back in the olden days we considered certain pedestrians as 'lubricant'.
I was sad to see that Chris Hayes was not the journalist who was hit by this car.
already the robots rebel...lol i thought you were joking about the optional package...jeeze
I like how the idiot just stood there when it was OBVIOUS there was an issue and the car wasn't going to stop. That pretty much sums up the mental ability of humans these days. Idiocracy in full effect!
Oh and brilliant on Volvo's part to make pedestrian avoidance an option. Again, the idiocracy in full effect.
Wait'll they program it for overseas wedding parties.
What's the problem? They're journalists. I mean, it isn't like they're people or anything.
it would have been better if they were lawyers
It would be MUCH better if they were Jewish lawyers!
I thought all lawyers were Jewish.
Bunch o' bloody Parrots, I say. Two legged echo chambers. Necessary distractions when the truth gets too hot elsewhere.
Note to self: do not drive the car with your iPhone like in James Bom'd movies.
I'm upgrading my Pacer to a Gremlin... you can keep your self driving cars.
"I definitely did not get hit by that car. I barrel rolled out of the way." B.Williams
They trained it to do that.
WTF? The Onion becomes reality.
Well, if the victims were journalists, then I doubt it was less an accident than a public service.
Well, if the victims were journalists, then I doubt it was less an accident than a public service.
LOL. This is exactly what the fed is doing to everyone. Typical sheeple. They are standing there with there hands in their pockets the whole time the car was barrelling towards them as if the omnicient god of tech could do no wrong. Same goes for the fed: Run right over the sheeple while they are still in disbelief that such a thing could have even happened to them.
Christine?