Self-Parking car ploughs into journalists

A video from the Dominican Republic shows a Volvo XC60 reversing slowly, pausing for a few seconds, then surging forward into a crowd of onlookers. The horrifying 30-second clip went viral — and it turned out the story behind it was not what it first appeared.

Despite the video's billing, the car was not self-parking and not malfunctioning. According to Volvo, a dealer driver was informally demonstrating the XC60's City Safety system — an automatic-braking feature designed to prevent low-speed rear-end collisions with other cars. City Safety does not brake for pedestrians. That ability comes from a separate, optional system called Pedestrian Detection, and Volvo clarified that this particular car simply was not equipped with it. Two onlookers were hit, and according to the video's uploader and Volvo, the injuries were minor.

The company's explanation made uncomfortable reading: the XC60's City Safety system only watches for other vehicles, so stopping for pedestrians requires an optional package — reportedly around a $3,000 upgrade. Volvo spokesman Stefan Elfström added that the driver's inputs would have overridden any active safety system anyway, since he was accelerating toward the crowd, and stressed that Volvo strongly recommends never testing such systems on real humans: only dummies or similar objects should be used.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8nnhUCtcO8[/youtube]

The real lesson was not about robot cars gone rogue. It was about a human being who drove a car straight at a crowd to show off a feature the car did not have.