I would simply assure myself that I could tell the difference between the brake and accelerator pedals. This is the same f****ng hysteria that struct audi ten years ago. The reports vanished when audi installed an interlock so that the driver had to have his boot on the brake pedal before putting the car in gear.
Not even remotely the same thing.
I thought I heard someone being interviewed and she said she couldn't shift out of gear, but I could be wrong.
And you were there in each and every case? People occasionally stomp on the wrong pedal. It happens every week all the time. The only thing different now is the media hysteria.
The only hysteria evident is yours.
The Toyotas, when they "run away" seem to do it while the driver is just cruising along, sometimes already at highway speeds. Has nothing to do with a foot hitting the gas pedal rather than the brake pedal. In fact, part of the problem is that at 70-80 MPH with both feet standing on the brakes, you can't stop the vehicle.
This has been widely reported.
The problem with Audis would happen when the car was being moved from a standing position because of the size and position of the pedals making it easy to push the wrong one without realizing it.
Also widely reported.
She was too paniced to shift out of gear. She doesn't even belong behind the wheel of a car.
What gets me are the people that plow into stuff at 90MPH, NINETY MILES PER HOUR, after experiencing the uncontrolled acceleration problem.
How the hell fast were they going in the first place that they didn't have time to calm down and react to the situaiton before the car got to 90MPH? Even from 70MPH, it takes several seconds to hit 90, plenty of time for even the most bubble-headed driver to recover from the initial shock and shift into neutral, or turn off the key. Romping on the brakes until they get hot would buy you several more seconds to figure out what to do.
:
re: "In fact, part of the problem is that at 70-80 MPH with both feet standing on the brakes, you can't stop the vehicle."
I'm admittingy tossing out "partial information" here, since I can't cite the source.
The other I heard a gentleman who was being interviewed on the radio - who I believe was a spokesman from some Auto Safety organization - who stated:
"In any passenger vehicle, even the weakest set of brakes is more powerful than the strongest engine. There is no reason that a driver should not be able to stop a Toyota when it exhibits the run-away problem. The key is to not panic, apply the brakes, shift into neutral and pull to the side of the road."
Sounds easy enough. ;-)
You loose the ASSIST. Means braking needs both feet and steering needs some muscle. At speed the steering is not much of an issue, while at low speeds it can be very difficult. Braking the opposite.(sorta)
Probability of blowing the engine is much less than 2% - the compiuter shuts off fuel at about 4500 RPM in neutral.
that quote doesn't imply the brakes will stop the car without being in neutral. the brakes won't stop the car if, in fact, it is in gear and accelerating (or at least once the breaks start slipping due to overheating), it won't.
-snip-
And yet all these folks with runaway cars say [the survivors] they stood on the brakes to no avail.
Put the car in neutral- then you should be able to stop quickly- then turn it off. ?Easy to write-- probably takes some control to pull off in real life.
Jim
I don't know, but in the case of the Lexus that killed 4 people in CA, the car was going out of control long enough for a passenger to call
911 and be on the call long enough to tell what was happening. The driver was a CA Highway Patrol officer, who you would think would have enough sense and understanding of what to do so with that amount of time you would think he would have tried all the obvious things.
Unless of course the runaway condition is being caused by a fault in the computer!
Maybe it will shut off the fuel, and maybe it won't. Toyota insisted that the computer would have thrown up an error code after an alleged runaway incident. It has been proven conclusively that that is not correct. An engineer has demonstrated live on TV that he can cause the computer to go into runaway acceleration, and it does not throw up any trouble codes as a result.
Yes it will, but probably no more than two times. The engine is no match for the brakes.
Correct. They were stomping on the accelerator as hard as they could thinking it was the brakes. If they were stomping on the brakes, the car would have stopped.
People confuse the pedals all the time. I doubt they had time to look down and verify the pedals while they were panicing.
Happens several times every week in a country the size of the U.S. Only difference now is the hysteria over it. Just like 10 years ago with the audis. The runaway audi's were all people stoping on the wrong pedal.
Would need to be a compound fault, as the rev limiter has no connection to the throttle. It shuts off injectors. SO - even if the "unintended accelleration" problem IS a computer glitch, it would still not blow up if put in neutral.......
And how is he "throwing it into runaway accelleration"??????
CHIPPY or rocket scientist doesn't make any difference . He wasn't smart enough to stop the car - doesn't say much for his intelligence. He obviously did NOT do the obvious things - like put it out of gear or shut it down. Getting into a car and not knowing how to operate the controls is just plain stupid - particularly for a "professional" driver like a COP.
People forget they have a parking / "emergency" brakes? What a crazy world.
The good part about braking is you will have full power assisted braking until you pump the pedal a couple times... so Don't Pump it!
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