Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
VOLVO CARS HAS revealed it is developing technology in Australian cars that can detect kangaroos, potentially avoiding thousands of collisions a year and major insurance costs.
The kangaroo is Australia’s largest marsupial and is involved in most animal-car collisions on the vast island continent, according to data from Australian car insurers.
The animal can reach speeds of up to 60 kilometres per hour running on its powerful hind legs.
“In Sweden we have done research involving larger, slower moving animals like elk, reindeer and cows, which are a serious threat on our roads,” Volvo Cars safety engineer Martin Magnusson said in a statement.
Kangaroos are smaller than these animals and their behaviour is more erratic.
Volvo Cars, which is owned by China’s Geely, said a team of safety engineers from Sweden were in Australia’s capital Canberra this week to film the roadside behaviour of kangaroos and collect data for its detection and collision-avoidance software.
The system detects movements through a radar sensor in a car’s grille that scans the road ahead and through a light-sensitive, high-resolution camera on its windscreen.
The car’s brakes are automatically applied if the software determines a collision is about to occur.
“Kangaroos are very unpredictable animals and difficult to avoid, but we are confident we can refine our animal detection technology to detect them and avoid collisions on the highway,” Magnusson said.
The Australian Capital Territory, where Canberra is located, and areas in the surrounding state of New South Wales are “hot spots” for vehicle collisions involving kangaroos, according to the government.
Australian insurer NRMA said there were more than 9,000 reported collisions with kangaroos in both states in 2014.
The insurer said it could not disclose the cost of the claims but Volvo Cars, citing the National Roads and Motorists’ Association – a different organisation – said there were 20,000 kangaroo-vehicle incidents across the country each year, leading to claims of more than Aus$75 million (€48m).
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Cos that decisions not gonna cause any problems.
“A nonagenarian lawyer representing a Hindu deity “ ..well presumably the lawyer for the other side is also representing a fictitious deity?
This is a very dangerous development.
@Gary Sheahan: why?
When the gods start warring with each other it seems to go on forever .I wonder did ever hear about a Good Friday kind of thing and follow their poor mortals and come up with some sort of arrangement
Hmm, what could possibly go wrong?
India going out of their way to piss off the muslims
@Mr.Misery: yep the Danes and French caused mayhem with a couple of cartoons. What are the Indians thinking??
@Greg Daniel: PM Modi is a Hindu ethno-nationalist, he’s been whipping up anti-Muslim sentiment for ages in India as a means to get into and hold onto power-he is a dangerous individual who will end up formenting mass murder if he’s not careful
@Mr.Misery: What could India possibly have against the religion that killed as many as 80 million of their people?
@DJ François: Yep, definitely. Kashmir was only the start of it. Now this. Lots more to come
@Fifty Shades of Sé: 80 million Indians killed by Muslims? Where did you get that from?
@Fifty Shades of Sé: religion killed 80 million? Hope they caught it.
@DJ François: hate mongering at it’s worst
@Niall Carry: I’m a Hindu. I know what we have suffered at the hands of invaders since time immemorial
But that is what Islam does, look at all the Christian sites in Israel as they all had an Islamic site built on most of them. And Christians did the same to pagan sites and so on and so on…
have your say