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Volvo Self-Parking Car Hits People Because Owner Didn't Pay For Extra Feature
schwit1 writes: A video that recently went viral shows a demonstration of a Volvo XC60's self-parking feature. It reverses itself, waits, and then confidently drives into a group of people at a non-negligible speed. (Two were hit, and while both were bruised, they were otherwise OK.) The situation was presumed to have resulted from a malfunction with the car — but the car might not have had the ability to recognize a human at all. A Volvo representative said the car was not equipped with the "Pedestrian detection" feature. That feature is sold as a separate package.
Shouldn't a human without any major cognitive disabilities know not to trigger the auto-parking feature when there were people standing in the spot?
A more appropriate title would be: "Idiot hits pedestrians after purposely setting up his vehicle to do so, hoping it wouldn't."
That didn't look like a parking attempt. How is "ramming speed" the first step of parking?
No matter how old it is, I still can't fathom the "extra" scheme applied to the automotive industry. It's not enough that most companies (especially luxury brands) already price their cars exorbitantly high, covering most R&D cost for technology it does not ship with as stock, yet they keep multiplying and over-complicating the extra packages in ways that if you want to add a single extra essential feature, you are pretty much forced to add 10 more (I guess Volvo guys forgot it this time but I bet they intended to do it). Why can't all cars be more like a Model S and ship with the most relevant technological developments "out of the box" (as there is no stand per se, it must come in a box). And I'm not even talking about the fact it's an electric car.
The car did not hit people because the owner didn't pay for an extra feature. The car hit people because the driver made an error, assuming the car had a feature the car did not have.
Get stuck while offroading? It's not the car's fault you didn't buy the 4WD version.
Damage the engine by filling up with diesel instead of regular gas? It's not the car's fault you didn't buy the model with the diesel engine.
Injured because your car didn't notify the manufacturer when it was in an accident? It's not the car's fault you didn't pay for the accident monitoring service.
Don't dry your poodle in this microwave oven. Do not look into laser with remaining eye. Objects in mirror may be closer than they appear. Not to be used as a flotation device. This packet of nuts may contain traces of nuts. Look out for pedestrians when engaging the auto-park feature.
There's always a better idiot to beat your safety system. Also, wasn't this caused simply by the driver stepping on the accelerator? This did not look like the kind of driving any self-parking car would do, pedestrians or no.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
There exist a system fÃr detection of hinders in all cars. It's called a driver.
The driver should never use a feature of a car that can make it move in a way that it can hit a human.
Its common sense.
Just saying it like it are.
I believe almost all of the self parking cars currently available to the public more accurately described as hands free more than completely automated. From what I gather, the driver is still required to operate the pedals (for liability purposes rather than technical reasons).
It was the driver's responsibility to operate it safely (ie not stamp on the accelerator and actually look at what's ahead), the fact that a premium feature could have compensated for the idiot behind the wheel is moot. It's akin to driving straight at a brick wall then complaining that the accident was caused by a car company not giving you "brick wall avoidance" as a feature in your model rather than you doing something stupid.
The car wasn't driving itself. The driver in the car stepped on the gas and drove into the people.
Also, wasn't this caused simply by the driver stepping on the accelerator?
That appears to be the case. The reporting on this is very muddled, but at least one article says that the car was not in "self-parking" mode, so the pedestrian detection would not have been active even if this car had it. The driver was in full control of the car, and intentionally accelerated toward the reporters. So the real story here is that some random guy in the Dominican Republic is an idiot.
More than one guy in that video was an idiot.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
So does this mean Volvo sells a configuration that 1) has a computer control the car in small, enclosed spaces and 2) doesn't have said computer look for obstacles, and specifically not humans?
My wife's car (not a Volvo) has obstacle detection, and "self-park". The obstacle detection only works at low speed, and it will only stop the car if the computer is in control (self-park activated). If a human is in control, it will beep and display the location and distance to the obstacle on the dash display, but it does not override the human. It does not distinguish between a pedestrian and other obstacles, like a tree or trash can.
For the situation in the video, where 1) a human was in control, and 2) the car was moving fairly quickly, the obstacle detection would not have prevented the collision, and likely would not have even been activated.
In my opinion, this is the correct division of blame for this incident:
Idiot driver: 99%
Idiot journalists who didn't get out of the way: 1%
Volvo: 0%