Kangaroos and driverless cars

[Tozla]

The very Australian problem of roos and driverless cars

Apparently kangaroos are going to pose a problem with the way the car detects them in mid flight.

I must say on a recent trip to took from Melbourne to Canberra and back I saw many kangaroo carcasses on the side of the road and was very worried one would jump out of the bushes and damage my shiny new car.

 

[BrettS]

It’s an interesting problem and I suspect that it may affect more than kangaroos. There are no kangaroos here, but I have lived in areas with a lot of deer and they tend to jump quite a bit as well and would likely have the same issues.

 

[strykeroz]

EAP might need an Australian edition which will to know how to avoid skippies, wombats, emus, pigs, goats, foxes, deer, emu, camels, wedgies and many flavours of cattle both domesticated and ferral...yet swerve to run over cane toads if it's to successfully replace drivers on this big brown island.

 

[Blue heaven]

The very Australian problem of roos and driverless cars

Apparently kangaroos are going to pose a problem with the way the car detects them in mid flight.

I must say on a recent trip to took from Melbourne to Canberra and back I saw many kangaroo carcasses on the side of the road and was very worried one would jump out of the bushes and damage my shiny new car.

I can assure you one of those carcasses wont jump out in front of your car!

 

[Blue heaven]

Kangaroos are not the only problem, Emu's change direction at the last moment also...

Cattle think they own the road.....

The Sheep are okay, they just lean up against a post and chill out while you drive past...

but if you stumble across one of these blokes damage to your car is the least to worry about....

 

[stphw]

Elon Musk Guarantees Driverless Cars Will Not Stop For Roos

 

[ggr]

EAP might need an Australian edition which will to know how to avoid skippies, wombats, emus, pigs, goats, foxes, deer, emu, camels, wedgies and many flavours of cattle both domesticated and ferral...yet swerve to run over cane toads if it's to successfully replace drivers on this big brown island.

Fortunately the Tesla is too fast to have to worry about Drop Bears.

 

[Dborn]

EAP might need an Australian edition which will to know how to avoid skippies, wombats, emus, pigs, goats, foxes, deer, emu, camels, wedgies and many flavours of cattle both domesticated and ferral...yet swerve to run over cane toads if it's to successfully replace drivers on this big brown island.

You forgot devils. Stunning to see how much roadkill there is in Tassie.

 

[Canuck]

Elon Musk Guarantees Driverless Cars Will Not Stop For Roos

So I see the Onion has competition.

I'm not sure anything can be done about this problem. If something is going to run or jump in front of your vehicle as you're driving down the highway I doubt any system can prevent a collision. White-tailed deer can jump 15 feet high and no deer fences are that high -- not that we can fence all the highways in Canada. Wildlife overpasses help, like this one...

Canada’s first overpass for animals appeared on the Coquihalla Highway more than 30 years ago. It was ground breaking at the time, but the practice has evolved. “It is an element of highway design today,” Czernick said. He added that it’s especially important when constructing highways, where speed is a factor and a collision with any large animal can prove fatal for both parties.

 

[Blue heaven]

Kangaroo V Truck just after sunrise this morning.
Truck driver dies after kangaroo collision

 

[Sir Surfalot]

Apologies for resurrecting an old thread, but I had a near miss with Skippy yesterday before dawn and saved the footage, and just cropped and uploaded it.

Model 3 (2021 LR, MiC, firmware 2021.4.18) driving on TACC on a 90km/h divided road. A medium-sized kangaroo hopped straight across the road (left to right) in front of me. No warning klaxon, no automatic emergency braking, … The only braking and small dive to the left to miss the roo was me. No graphic of the roo on the screen either. It was as though a hopping animal was completely invisible to the car, even though it was clearly a collision threat (from where I was sitting anyway!)

My car is very wary of bicycles - riding in the breakdown lane minding their own business - on that same stretch of road and similar pre-dawn lighting (etc) conditions, so I don’t really understand why it totally ignored the kangaroo.

What’s everyone else’s experience with kangaroo near-misses, particularly with the current firmware (which seems to me to have been tweaked in recent 2021.4.* builds to reduce phantom braking)?

 

[paulp]

Apologies for resurrecting an old thread, but I had a near miss with Skippy yesterday before dawn and saved the footage, and just cropped and uploaded it.

Model 3 (2021 LR, MiC, firmware 2021.4.18) driving on TACC on a 90km/h divided road. A medium-sized kangaroo hopped straight across the road (left to right) in front of me. No warning klaxon, no automatic emergency braking, … The only braking and small dive to the left to miss the roo was me. No graphic of the roo on the screen either. It was as though a hopping animal was completely invisible to the car, even though it was clearly a collision threat (from where I was sitting anyway!)

My car is very wary of bicycles - riding in the breakdown lane minding their own business - on that same stretch of road and similar pre-dawn lighting (etc) conditions, so I don’t really understand why it totally ignored the kangaroo.

What’s everyone else’s experience with kangaroo near-misses, particularly with the current firmware (which seems to me to have been tweaked in recent 2021.4.* builds to reduce phantom braking)?

My experience with kangaroos is dont drive at 90kmh at night where they are present unless you are in a semi, never use autopilot of fsd or cruise control as you’ll become complacent, never assume the risk is reduced if they are hopping away, and if impact is innevitable always fully accelrate at the last moment to ensure the animal is flicked over your windscreen rather than through it…..where it will kick you to death….as many have unfortunately discovered.

 

[Wol747]

Elon Musk Guarantees Driverless Cars Will Not Stop For Roos

It appears that E Musk has no f*****g idea of the consequences of hitting a 'roo at speed.
Having said that I shared a charging array a month or two ago with a gentleman in his X which was heavily kangaroo-ed at the front end: he'd been running it quite happily for weeks like that without problems.

 

[paulp]

It appears that E Musk has no f*****g idea of the consequences of hitting a 'roo at speed.
Having said that I shared a charging array a month or two ago with a gentleman in his X which was heavily kangaroo-ed at the front end: he'd been running it quite happily for weeks like that without problems.

cant see driverless cars or robo taxi’s getting approval for use in australia if they dont stop for roos. Bad luck if you bought thinking you’d be running a robotaxi.

 

[Sir Surfalot]

My experience with kangaroos is dont drive at 90kmh at night where they are present unless you are in a semi, never use autopilot of fsd or cruise control as you’ll become complacent

The road this happened on was a major Sydney suburban arterial road. No kangaroo warning signs and more importantly you almost never see a roo - alive or dead - on it (context: I have been driving on that road pretty regularly for 40+ years).

Given that a roo can appear anywhere if you are unlucky, my earlier question remains whether anyone’s car (especially with recent firmware, eg 2021.4.18) has done better than mine when a roo appears. Mine did absolutely nothing, as though the animal wasn’t even there even though it crossed directly in my path, whereas a bicycle rider going straight ahead in the (wide and clearly lane-marked) breakdown lane on that same stretch of road usually causes an audible warning and/or braking.

 

[moa999]

Tough one.
That one isn't particularly large.

And you don't want the car auto-braking for a bird or plastic bag blowing across the road.

And it was moving fairly quickly. Without actually seeing the logs you don't know if it identified something but saw it was moving fast enough to miss.

 

[Wol747]

cant see driverless cars or robo taxi’s getting approval for use in australia if they dont stop for roos. Bad luck if you bought thinking you’d be running a robotaxi.

Bad luck if you bought ANY presently manufactured car expecting to make money from it robotaxiing!
I would take a large bet on them never being above level 3 unless (big) brown paper bags changed hands.....

 

[BrianBigNFun]

The very Australian problem of roos and driverless cars

Apparently kangaroos are going to pose a problem with the way the car detects them in mid flight.

I must say on a recent trip to took from Melbourne to Canberra and back I saw many kangaroo carcasses on the side of the road and was very worried one would jump out of the bushes and damage my shiny new car.

well you got to tie me kangaroo down sport

 

[paulp]

well you got to tie me kangaroo down sport

Isnt he currently a guest of her majesty?