I was watching an episode of Live Rescue. A woman in Ohio called 911 as her car was speeding and would not stop. Police gave chase and caught up with her at 80 mph and were going to form a barricade. A few years back there were a few instances of this happening.
The dispatcher was able to talk to her and have her apply the emergency brake and bring the car to a stop. Of course, the dispatcher was praised for her work.
I, on the hand, thought she needed more training. Two things that were not tried.
1 Shift to neutral
Turn off the ignition
even better 3. Both
Turning the car off you may lose power steering and power brakes after a stop or two. Neutral potentially can cause over revving and engine damage. Both are preferable to hitting another car or going off the road. Seems like something every driver should know.
Had the same thing here a few years ago, a Ford SUV IIRC. The owner tried to turn the key off and couldn't. Don't know abut the shift to neutral though, that wasn't mentioned.
One thing that can cause that is an out of whack IAC. What's worse, braking doesn't work because, like a governor reacting to load, the ECU tries to maintain engine RPM at steady state. Vehicles in this state typically run at between 60-80 mph. There have been articles mentioning this on the net.
I'd be inclined to fit an overriding fuel shut off solenoid or a relay in line with the fuel pump. Cut the fuel and they soon come to a stop. Stops the car thieves going for a joyride too when it is activated when parked.
Today's engines won't over-rev. They have a rev limiter that cuts fuel at "red-line". Most won't go over about 4500 in neutral. Some will cut about 6000. Basically they are incapable of hurting themselves. Try putting yours in neutral and flooring the gas pedal -
I agree. I woudn't count on the parking brake to stop a speeding car. In facd, I'd be surprised if it worked.
Any chance she did one or two of those and they edited that part out?
Driving my mother's car on some sort of errand, a car stopped in front of me to turn left, and when I applied the brakes, no brakes. I pumped them and I didn't hit the car too hard. Shifted to Reverse, forgot I had no brakes, and backed up. Because I was crooked, I was backing into the lane to my right. Reached for the parking brake, got the wrong one and I opened the hood. 2nd try, I stopped the car.
On the first car I owned, the flexible brake line to a front wheel broke and the brakes completely failed. Darn I can't remember details but I know I was going slow and somehow didn't cause any damage.
On my 2nd car, that my older brother gave me when he went to Viet Nam, the brakes failed at least twice.
I drove my brother in his car from Allentown to Philly, to catch his plane to California to then go on to VNam, and I drove back to Atown
The very next morning, when I was still parked in front of my parents' house, I had no brakes. The Pontiac big white plastic vacuum connector, that plugged into the brake booster and had a big vacuum hose, the little plastic circle in the middle had popped out. And all the vacuum escaped.
A few months later, at a little rustic store in a little parking lot, brakes failed and I backed into a rail fence resting against lots of bushes. They stopped me after 4 or 5 inches. Brake line had broken when cars had only one brake line.
After several years, bought another car just like my brother's, only '67 instead of '65, and a few months later, the same piece of white plastic popped off, and brakes failed. Again no damage somehow.
My brakes have failed at least 5 times, though not lately .
The first thing I would do is be sure the floor mat or something else isn't jamming the gas pedal. Then shift to neutral or turn off the key if that is not the problem. I drive a stick so the clutch is always a possibility.
From what I see, most drivers lack driving common skills of the road, let alone what to do in a panic situation. The DMVs of the nation seem to care only about revenues instead of teaching drivers the proper rules of the road.
A car is designed to allow a shift to neutral with just a push in this type of situation. I agree with your suggestion along with the ignition. Though, as with newer cars with push button start, I'm uncertain what happens if the button is pushed while driving. I recall doing it on my car because the start button is near my emergency flashers which I meant to push. I accidentally pushed the start button, but don't recall if the car was turned off. I may have to try again.
DMVs don't teach anything. They might test, but they don't teach.
Michigan doesn't even administer a written test for renewals any more, only for your first driver's license. They've privatized road tests. Cindy Hamilton
Sounds bizarre to me. If applying the regular brakes with force won't stop a car, how is the emergency brake going to do it? Actually it's correctly called the parking brake, because that's about all it's good for, if even that. If you apply it correctly with reasonable force, it will keep the car from rolling away. But try using it to stop the car when you're moving at speed, without engine power. They do start slowing it down, but it's very gradual and that's with no engine power. At highway speed it would quickly overheat and lose effectiveness. I'm with you, never could understand these cases where people claim the car just ran away with them for long distances at high speed.
It would? Isn't the parking brake the same as the rear hydraulic brakes? The problem is that people won't pull hard enough (or push when the parking brake was a pedal on the left) bit that means they will heat less fast.
Many parking brakes are now separate from the regular brakes.
I'm not sure if mine would work in that case or not. Unlike days of old where you pulled a cable or pushed a pedal, I just touch a switch. More for parking than emergency.
DMV is a joke all around. It is an agency that should be run by the insurance companies (driver's licenses, car titles, tags and all) You can bet your ass if the people with skin in the game ran the program, the driving test would actually test something, car titles would be administered through a national database and you wouldn't have valid tags as soon as your insurance expired or payments lapsed. It is just a bloated government bureaucracy that gained a life of it's own.
Clare can correct me but I think the simple cable actuated parking brake stopped being a thing when they started putting disk brakes on the rear wheels. That was 1967 for me (Chevelle) and again on my 69 Vette. My 71 Jeep was back to rear drums as were my Econolines after that.
I do not know what is being done now. About 50 years ago we usually took drivers education in the summer when we were 15 or older. It was usually taught by school teachers. There would be an instructor, the student driver, and two more in the back that would take turns for a while. I do not recall how long each day was, or how many weeks. There was some teaching in the class room, but not much. Most of the cars had 3 speed manual on the colume.
At 15 and 1/2 we could get a learners permit and that let us drive with a licensed driver (may have just been parents). Then at 16 we would go to the DMV and have a road test and written test and eye test.
My 2018 Toyota has cable actuation and drum brakes on the rear, as does the '86 F150. A porcupine ate a front hose on the pickup and I can attest there's not a hell of a lot of braking from the rear drums when you're coming down a mountain road in Vermont. I've sort of had a hard-on for porcupines since then. One had been prowling around the lean-to the night before and if I'd known what his cousin was up to I would have shot the bastard. Ate a heater hose too, but I could splice that back on itself.
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