The road can be a dangerous place. But in Australia, this takes on an entirely new meaning. Kangaroos may be rare in many parts of the world, but in the Land Down Under, kangaroos can actually be quite the road hazard, NBC noted.
In fact, over 20,000 kangaroos are involved in car accidents per year causing damages to the tune of AU $75 million or $55 million, according to Australia's National Roads & Motorists Association. To avoid many of these, Volvo is developing new technology that can detect kangaroos and automatically brake when the driver just has too little reaction time to react.
Using new camera and radar technology, Volvo is creating a system that will let its cars detect kangaroos and automatically apply the brakes to avoid hitting them, The Verge reported. There are already detection technologies for other crossing animals like deer, moose, and cows. However, kangaroos are unique.
Martin Magnusson, senior safety engineer at Volvo Cars, said in a statement, "Kangaroos are smaller than these animals and their behavior is more erratic. This is why it's important that we test and calibrate our technology on real kangaroos in their natural environment."
BBC also noted that an adult kangaroo can weigh as much as 200lbs. They can also hop along at speeds of more than 35mph. Their hopping can be very difficult to estimate as a single leap can get a kangaroo as far as 25 feet.
Volvo has deployed researchers to the area of the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve. The researchers are filming kangaroos near the roadside. They are analyzing these to be able to calibrate the technology properly.
Volvo has not announced when they will be rolling these kangaroo-detecting cars but it is not expected to take long. First of all, the technology is already existing. It is simply a matter of correctly calibrating the sensors to know when a collision with a kangaroo is imminent.
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