Self-Parking Car Hits Journalists At High Speed — Watch Video Of Self-Driving Volvo Accident With 2.7 Million Views [Video]

It was the kind of accident that doesn’t get good press: A self-parking Volvo mowed down a journalist or two that stood in front of the car, expecting it to detect them and stop on a dime. Instead, as seen in the video, the self-parking car kept right on going at a relatively high rate of speed, and hit the journalists that attended the Volvo demo.

According to CBS, the self-parking car didn’t stop when the journalists expected it to stop because the owner didn’t enact the “pedestrian detection” option. Nevertheless, the YouTube video of the incident has gone viral online, and has reached nearly 2.7 million views. As a result, Volvo has issued a statement that media personnel — nor any human being, for that matter — should stand in front of a car as a test.

“Volvo Cars strongly recommends to never perform tests towards real humans.”

Although the video has “self-parking” in the title, a spokesperson for Volvo, Johan Larsson, cleared up the fact that the Volvo is not trying to self-park, as seen in the video. It was the Volvo XC60 that was on display, with its self-parking featured being demo’d to journalists when the accident occurred.

The now-viral incident happened in the Dominican Republic, and viewers of the video are horrified upon witnessing just how hard the AI-assisted car plowed into the journalists.

The self-parking car’s viral video shows that the writers expected the Volvo to come to a stop after it rolled backwards and then began speeding forward, reports Fortune. The reporters who were run over only suffered bruising as their injuries, although the video looks much worse. Another spokesperson for Volva, Stefan Elfström, said that the Volvo wasn’t meant to be used in the manner that the journalists assumed.

In the wake of the accident, more explanations about what could have gone wrong have emerged, such as rationale that the “City Safety” function from Volvo had been deactivated in error. However, it’s not the first time that an accident in a similar fashion has happened, with experts pointing to a 2010 incident akin to the more recent mishap.

As reported by the Inquisitr, Volvo plans to release two self-driving cars within the next two years. However, this latest viral video isn’t offering much solace with the thought of cars taking control in lieu of human drivers.

“The Volvo XC60 comes with City Safety as a standard feature however this does not include the Pedestrian detection functionality.”

[Image via YouTube]