Driverless car crashes into fake kangaroo

Officials and experts were left red-faced when their plans to show off the benefits of driverless vehicles ended in a stuffed kangaroo being bowled by a car at speed.

The demonstration in Adelaide, Australia, went awry when the vehicle’s “autonomous emergency brakes” failed to kick in as it approached the fake animal standing in its path at about 40kph.

Instead, the dummy kangaroo was sent flying but a second attempt at showcasing the car’s driverless capabilities to gathered media was successful.

Stephen Mullighan, then South Australian minister of transport, was among those left embarrassed after he had hopped into the passenger seat for the 2015 demonstration.

Trying to draw something positive from the gaffe, he said: “This is a good example of why there needs to be testing in Australia of these new technologies.”

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