Reading one of SWMBO's crime novels.
The victim is murdered by cutting a car brake line. Though it was a pre dual circuit car I reckon I would know the instant I wnet to start the engine there was a fault as I always put my foot on the brake. Even without that, there are few circumstance wher nor having a foot brake would kill you. I can't think of a single way to sabotage a car to guarantee death short of explosives.
Stupid plot. These authors must be like journalists, thick as shit.
And the great big red warning light for low fluid, which's been a legal requirement for decades, would also be a hint.
I s'pose you could severely weaken a line - probably a flexi would be easiest, so that it'd blow at some stage in the very near future but not immediately.
On Tuesday 06 August 2013 17:28 harryagain wrote in uk.d-i-y:
And in the films where the car is careering down the hill and the stupid nonce does not try the gears (and yes, it's a manual).
Back in 2000 I had a 1994 VH Cavalier and a wife with L plates. So I took her to an unopened bypass for a little practice.
I said that she needed to slow down a little earlier when approaching roundabouts. She said that she had put her foot down on the brake as hard as she could and the pedal had gone all the way down.
A split hose to the caliper was the cause.
I did decided not to drive home (7 miles away) but to my parents - less than two miles away and let the gears and gravity do the breaking.
Did your parents have a washing machine?
A well established plot device, even used by Alfred Hitchcock. As you say, most unlikely to work without the help of a steep, winding, mountain descent. OTOH, in real life, there have been several convictions for attempted murder after brake pipes were cut.
I prefer the Blue's Brothers version - glue on the accelerator, so that the villain's foot sticks to the pedal and the pedal sticks to the floor.
Colin Bignell
The Queen can :)
You can achieve pretty much that without trace, just with the carpet/mat.
It was the Doook.
:)
My first answer was "let a woman drive it" but a drunk Frenchman is just as effective
The glue makes for a funnier film though.
Colin Bignell
Prince Charles got away with it.
There's the BMW serial bus hack via the tyre pressure sensors on the older ones.
Then tell the car to accelerate hard, and put ONE front brake on.
In message , Tim Watts writes
My father employed an ex army driving instructor. Stopping a moving lorry without the use of the brakes was then part of driver training. The other tale he used to tell was asking the trainee for his wrist watch and pretending to place it behind the wheels when practising hill starts.
Gavin Lyall gave a believable sabotage method in one of his Harry Maxim novels. An extension to an ignition lead feeding a spark plug fitted to a part filled petrol can hidden under the seat.
Peter James did a similar one but the act of turning on the ignition also locked the doors, inside and out.
I idly wondered whether crimping a brake line would work, because the pedal would still feel "right" but I guess the pressure would just open it back up anyway.
Not if you were to use a decent locking clamp as sold for the purposes of bleeding brakes on a flexible hose, it wouldn't.
A mate of mine was driving his long wheelbase crew cab landrover 110 down hill, with 1.5 tonnes of auger pile driving machine on the trailer behind him, when it decided then was a good time to have some brake pipes let go. Fortunately there was not much traffic and plenty of space to run off the road and slow down. Got the blood pumping though I am sure!
Buy them an electric car and watch them die of terminal boredom. However, getting anyone but a complete cretin to accept the gift is going to be a huge and problem.
The obvious suggestion is to replace some of the software. For example, if you know something of the person's pattern of driving, you might be able to reason some viable approach. For example, as soon as the car reaches 75mph, make it open the throttle fully. Especially if it is capable of a much higher speed. Not that it would be impossible to do something (such as apply the brakes so hat the speed doesn't rise too much) and gently steer into a crash barrier. But keeping a level head is not always easy.
In most cases short of having the Fickle Finger of Fate poised above the wreckage, I suspect the software would not be inspected after an incident.
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