It may be just a fake kangaroo, but when South Australia Transport Minister Stephen Mulligan ran over the unsuspecting critter with his self-driving vehicle (SDV) recently, its cries could be heard all over the internet (see the full story and video here).
Apparently the automatic braking system failed to operate properly, causing a collision with Skippy, the stuffed kangaroo.
Keeping on the high road to humor, the minister noted that the car must have been set to “cull” instead of “avoid”. Mulligan also tweeted a funny picture of a self-driving kangaroo (no relation to our self-driving dog site):
Not everyone saw the humor, however, as South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill commented, “What happened? I’m meant to drive this thing tomorrow”. The error did not happen in a second test, providing the transportation minister with the opportunity to weigh in that “this is a good example of why there needs to be testing in Australia of these new technologies”.
Skippy was unavailable for comment.
Skippy the stuffed kangaroo, in happier times (Source: twitter)