A Car With A Mind Of Its Own

mindriot writes "When Hicham Dequiedt, driving on a highway between Vierzon and Riom in central France in his Renault Vel Satis this Sunday, was overtaking a truck, his car began accelerating to 120 mph on its own, apparently due to a defect in the cruise control system. Stomping on the brakes proved pointless and, having a magnetic card for a car key, he could not cut the ignition. After calling the police from his cell phone who then attempted to clear the streets of any danger to him, in what he described as the most fearful event of his life, he raced down the highway for another hour before finally managing to stop the car. Read about the incident here or, in more detail, in this article by the German 'Spiegel' (translation). The case is still under investigation. Are we putting too much trust in the increasing number of electronic systems that our lives depend upon?"

Comments

Never attempt to turn off the ignition.

[garcia]

If this ever happens to you do not ever attempt to turn the ignition all the way off... In most cases you will lose both your power steering and your power braking. Make sure that you keep it at least on partially as most cars will not lose total power this way.

If you are traveling at a high rate of speed losing power steering/braking will cause more problems for you. First try neutral and even a lower gear if for some reason neutral isn't engaging. It's going to over-rev the engine but personally I'd prefer to replace a transmission or the entire engine rather than my blood or organs.

I couldn't read the translated article as it just wasn't working so I don't know if this was suggested or not but if it wasn't suggested by the police I just can't understand why not.

Re:Never attempt to turn off the ignition.

[jargoone]

Yeah, getting the car into neutral would be my first thought, too. This car probably had that option. However, some newer, fancier cars also have the gear selection electronic. The BMW 745 comes to mind. I suppose it's unlikely that two systems would fail simulatneously, but who knows?

Re:Never attempt to turn off the ignition.

[linuxtelephony]

I wonder if the electronic transmission has "safety sensors" that won't shift to a lower gear if it might cause engine damage. If so, even if you put the selector down to the first gear, the computer would override the driver in order to protect the engine.

Hmm, the computer overriding the human for self-preservation. That could be interesting.....

Re:Never attempt to turn off the ignition.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right, but for the wrong reasons.

Have you ever driven a car without power steering? You won't notice a difference at higher speeds, actually the difference between manual and power steering becomes negligible as soon as you're going faster than 20 kph or so. Losing power brakes is bad, but the brakes do still work, and you'll slow down quicker than by just going into neutral.

The dangerous thing is that you might LOCK your steering by pulling off the ignition key!

Re:Never attempt to turn off the ignition.

[cbelt3]

This happens in Hardware, too, guys. Envision a combined catastrophic failure- automatic transmission locks in gear (they do, ya know- it's basically a hydraulic switch that gets gunked up), accelerator cable jams in full-on position (again, it CAN happen). Oh, and to add insult to injury, the power switch on the bad boy is jammed somehow. Once you are up to speed (say 100kph plus), the parking brake (which only acivates the rear brakes) will happily burn up the rear brakes, if it works at all (most automatic transmission drivers never use the parking brake, and it's not adjusted, so full pull/push will only result in minor or no brake application). Pushing on the transmission selector doesn't do anything because it's jammed internally with lots of hydraulic pressure. Holding down the brakes will cause 'em to burn up if the engine has enough HP to overcome them.

I can personally recall a wild ride in a manual transmission car where the accelerator cable stuck in full-on. I had the presence of mind and fortune to shut the engine off before it spooled past redline, but in traffic it was an interesting experience.

As we get more into software driven automobiles, the opportunity for failures like this continue to climb. For example --->

If Microsoft made cars, and other true stories

Re:Never attempt to turn off the ignition.

[Oddly_Drac]

"If you can't steer and/or stop your car with the power off, you need less car."

Did you mean with brakes, or by hand? If the latter, I'm going to be really polite to you.

"Using electric brakes with metallic pads means no brake fade, ever, up to the point where you warp your rotors. There's no brake fluid to take on water and boil, not necessarily in that order."

Fade is gaseous buildup from the pads ablating against the disc, which is why you do graduated braking on a non-fancy car, but personally I wouldn't trust a solenoid to do the force multiplying work of a caliper.

As for the brake fluid taking on water...if you have a non-tight hydraulic system you'll be screwed anyway, let alone getting to the point where you have water in it. Compare the relatively low tech and _reliable_ cylinder and caliper system with the voltages/currents required to produce braking forces and you'll probably notice that there's going to some power applied.

"unreliability of automotive hydraulic systems."

Probably _the_ most reliable portion of the average motor car, if maintained and kept in good repair and not driven with utter faith in the ability to tailgate other drivers at 80mph. Most accidents involving brakes are people locking the wheels at speed.

Re:Never attempt to turn off the ignition.

[drinkypoo]

If I turned the key off too far I'd deserve what I got. However my car requires that a I push a little button down to turn the key far enough to lock the steering, probably for that reason. However, it's a Nissan, and their engineers actually understand what they're doing. (Shit, even my distributor can only be installed one way. I wish more engines were like that.)

It's not that I'm high and mighty, it's that I consider driving to be a privilege and a responsibility.

Re:Never attempt to turn off the ignition.

[james72]

If you turn the ignition 'part way' off (so that the engine stops - most cars will still loose power steering and brakes. They are generally powered from the engine, and are not electric. Some more modern cars do have electrical power-steering, I think.

-James.

Re:Never attempt to turn off the ignition.

[dykofone]

I've got a 97 Landrover Discovery, so not exactly a new car, but it does what you talk about. If you shift down to 1st while going at high speeds, it won't shift until you've decelerated enough to avoid damaging the engine. If you keep your foot on the gas, it won't ever shift down.

Re:Never attempt to turn off the ignition.

[MustardMan]

I've seen a 110 pound woman pick up a Fat Boy that weighed 600 pounds dry. Knowing the technique is half the battle.

Not to mention, the smallest harley, an 883 Hugger Sportster, is light enough that even without a good technique most people can pick it up. My sister, who has chronic back problems and is about as strong as a six year old, managed to pick up her Sportster no problem. You seem to be of the impression that every Harley is a monstrous oversized beast suited only for giant musclebound bikers. Who's the ignorant one here?

There are large touring bikes out that that are virtually impossible for ANYONE to pick up. Does that mean they shouldn't be ridden? The difference is, you shouldn't be riding a bike like that unless you are experienced enough to PREVENT it from dropping. Little woman or big burly fatass, you should buy a bike within your skill range that is comfortable to ride, weight be damned.

Re:Never attempt to turn off the ignition.

[FlopEJoe]

Oblig: I can't let you do that, Dave.

Re:Never attempt to turn off the ignition.

[teeker]

I wonder if the electronic transmission has "safety sensors" that won't shift to a lower gear if it might cause engine damage.

Bingo. I bet this is the case...many (most?) modern cars have this...hell even my old Buick Park Ave wouldn't allow a manual downshift if it would redline the engine..it would only go down as far as engine speed allowed and no lower.

And as for cutting ignition and losing power steering and braking, well every car I've ever seen has a vacuum reservoir that will give power assist for a couple stops if the engine stops providing vacuum (stops running). After that, they still work but you do have to push much harder. All cars (in the US at least) have to allow the steering and braking to control the car in the event of an engine stall, albeit with increased effort. While it may make things more difficult, it's still probably your first best chance to come out of the ordeal alive.

Re:Never attempt to turn off the ignition.

[thedillybar]

If this ever happens to you do not ever attempt to turn the ignition all the way off...

1) If you kill the ignition in this situation, you're not going to immediately lose power steering and power braking. The engine is still going to be turning over (at least a little bit, even in an automatic transmission) since it's in gear and the tires are spinning. As long as you have the engine turning, you have power steering & power braking; these systems (for most cars) don't rely on electronics.

2) You can control a car without power steering or power braking.

3) You have 2 options.
a) Run the car at 120mph until you run out of gas.
b) Kill the ignition and try to handle it.

4) This guy was probably just out having some fun. He managed to stop it before he killed himself by hitting a toll booth. I don't believe one word of it.

Re:Never attempt to turn off the ignition.

[GreyPoopon]

And folks depending on how important it is to stop use the old rally trick of the hand/parking brake.

But you need to be *very* careful about this at 120 mph.

Re:Never attempt to turn off the ignition.

[ljavelin]

do not ever attempt to turn the ignition all the way off... In most cases you will lose both your power steering and your power braking.

Of course, power steering and brakes are specifically designed to work if the power component fails.

Losing power steering at a high rate of speed is not a problem - you turn the wheel very little when at speed. Power steering is only important when you're going very slowly and/or stopped.

You can easily lock up the brakes using your own leg power alone. Power brakes are just a vacuum booster, to make it way-easy to lock up the brakes. Without power, you just have to press harder. But it certainly is far from being impossibly difficult. And in any case, the vacuum ramains in the booster for some period of time. Just try it the brakes in your garage with the engine off, and you'll get a feeling for it.

Of course, many cars of the up into the 1970's didn't have power brakes or steering. And do you know what? They were steerable and stopable at all speeds. Basic steering and braking systems have NOT changed at all since then.

The only significant danger is enabling the steering wheel lock while turning off your ignation at speed. Watch out if you turn off your ignition while moving - you don't want to mistakenly LOCK your steering wheel while at speed.

Mod down parent.

Re:Never attempt to turn off the ignition.

[untaken_name]

It's like these tiny women on harley-davidson motorcycles, how the fuck are they going to pick those things up if they drop them?

The same way tiny men do: straddle the bike, and use leverage to shift the bike on the natural fulcrum provided until both handlebars can be grasped. I've seen 4-foot sub-100-pound women manage this easily with extremely heavy bikes. It isn't about how strong your arm is in this situation, it's about your understanding of physics.
If you only lift bikes while standing off to one side of them, you are doing it wrong.

Just ignorant.

Yes, that sums the first portion of your comment up nicely. You'd fail the buyer test in my local Harley dealership. They take you out back where they have a rusted-out chopper. The owner tells you he won't sell you a bike you can't pick up, so you must demonstrate that you can pick up that old rusted bike. Standing to one side and pulling, unless you are extremely strong, will not help you. If you don't straddle the bike, you probably aren't going to move it. He'll show you the trick, though, if he likes you.

Re:Never attempt to turn off the ignition.

[bhtooefr]

Try a Dodge Ram 250 without power steering (pump failure) at 55mph, and post again.

Re:Never attempt to turn off the ignition.

[demonbug]

There are large touring bikes out that that are virtually impossible for ANYONE to pick up. Does that mean they shouldn't be ridden? The difference is, you shouldn't be riding a bike like that unless you are experienced enough to PREVENT it from dropping.

It isn't a matter of being experienced enough "to prevent dropping" - as any truly experienced rider will tell you, it isn't if you will be going down, it is when you will be going down. It doens't matter how good, how quick, or how smart you are, at some point you will hit a patch of gravel or a slick of oil and you will be down before you know what happened. If you think otherwise you are merely fooling yourself.

Re:Never attempt to turn off the ignition.

[visgoth]

Some cars have the parking brake mounted to the front wheels, which would definitely have a negative impact upon vehicle stability at 120 mph.

Re:Never attempt to turn off the ignition.

[ras_b]

All cars (in the US at least) have to allow the steering and braking to control the car in the event of an engine stall, albeit with increased effort

I had this happen to me in an old jeep cherokee (~1990?). I could not steer nor brake. I was young and had no idea what to do as i was heading for an intersection. i put the car in park which was probably totally wrong because i heard some horrible noises from the car, but eventually came to a stop.

Re:Never attempt to turn off the ignition.

[Lethyos]

And as for cutting ignition and losing power steering and braking, well every car I've ever seen has a vacuum reservoir that will give power assist for a couple stops if the engine stops providing vacuum (stops running).

Interesting mention. This is exactly what gasoline-electric hybrids like the Civic Hybrid and the Prius rely on when they shut off their engines. I've personally found that this reserve braking power can do quite a bit for stopping your car. (Basically, the Civic Hybrid will restart the engine if it detects this reserve running low. So, after coasting down a hill and reaching high speeds with the engine off, I can easily bring the car to a stop without the engine kicking back in.)

Re:Never attempt to turn off the ignition.

[fucksl4shd0t]

Ok, some words.

By federal law, in order for a car to be sold in the US, it must be manufactured to:

1. Steer without power assist. So if your power steering system fails, you can still steer the car.
2. Steer without power! No electricity for some reason? You *must* be able to steer the car.
3. Stop without power assist. So if your engine cuts off, you can still stop the car.
4. Have a secondary braking system capable of stopping the car with at least two wheels that operates independently of the main brakes. That's usually called an Emergency Brake but is more correctly called a Parking Brake, and if you have to use it, you're already fucked.

I would expect congress to get all luddite over drive-by-wire. In order for drive-by-wire to work in applications where it's already used you find heavy maintenance regulations and a draconian regulatory body overseeing the things. Such a system is pretty impractical for cars, and drive-by-wire becomes a worthless engineering feat if you still have to make the same systems work with mechanical backups.

Using electric brakes with metallic pads means no brake fade, ever, up to the point where you warp your rotors.

This is inaccurate, to say the least. A great deal of brake fade happens because your rotors are too hot and are no longer capable of discharging heat. Since your brakes work by converting inertia into heat, if your brakes cannot discharge any more heat, they stop working. Basic physics here. No matter how the pads are actuated, the system still has to disperse the heat.

Re:Never attempt to turn off the ignition.

[revmoo]

Your not going to be able to shift from 5th to reverse while moving, because reverse doesnt have synchros ...perhaps you could double-clutch it into reverse, but that's just silly :p

As far as my car, the transmission doesnt allow you to downshift if there is more than a 3000 or so rpm deficit between the gears.

Also, to the GP who said never to turn off the ignition in a moving car...you can surivive without power steering, in fact *GASP* some cars don't have it to begin with.

Braking is more of an issue but that's why cars are equipped with emergency brakes.

Re:Never attempt to turn off the ignition.

[HoneyBunchesOfGoats]

The reason you don't want to turn off the ignition is that on most cars doing so locks the steering. Much more troublesome than losing power assist.

Re:Never attempt to turn off the ignition.

[Carnildo]

An ignition usually has four settings:
1) Lock: This locks the steering and lets you remove the key
2) Accessory: Unlocks the steering wheel and provides power to things like the radio, but not the engine
3) On: Provides power to the spark plugs
4) Start: Provides power to the spark plugs and starter motor.

You can safely turn the key from "on" to "accessory" if you need to stop the engine while driving. Normally, turning the key further into the "lock" position requires extra effort, such as pushing a button.

Re:Never attempt to turn off the ignition.

[robfoo]

Really? So you're saying the steering wheel in a ~1990 Jeep Cherokee is not physically connected to the wheels?
I find it hard to believe that a car manufacturer would design a car that would not steer under loss of power. Over here in New Zealand, we call that illegal.
My guess is you lost power assistance to the steering, and "being young", you panicked. That's ok. It happens.
This is why I think driver education should be more like flight training, armed forces training, etc. You should (in a controlled environment, of course) be forced into situations where things fail, and you have to react.

Re:Never attempt to turn off the ignition.

[DavidTC]

I've never heard of a car where you could turn the key to 'lock' while in gear, even with pushing a button. That would just be stupid...how often do you need to physically remove the key while the car is in motion? (What, you're in such a hurry you need to unlock your front door while your car slams to a halt, plastering you against the steering wheel and ripping out your transmission?) All you want to do is stop the engine from running.

Now, I've heard of cars where you can't turn the key to accessory when the car's not in neutral or park, but never actually seen them, and I'm not actually sure they exist...I think it's just people making assumptions about their car. If anyone actually has a car that will not do that, please respond to me. (I'm talking physically, here, not weird-ass drive-by-wire cars that you turn off electronically, like in this article.)

My automatic Pontiac Sunbird would not only let you do that, it would also let you 'push start' it. Of course, you had to be going like 30 mph or so, so you couldn't actually push start it unless you had a damn big hill, but if it stalled while driving down the highway, you could just flip the key to accessory and then back while in gear.

Re:Never attempt to turn off the ignition.

[bleckywelcky]

I had my engine stall while going 50 mph through a winding mountain road (was a '96 or '97 vehicle). Freaked the hell out of me, but I was able to stomp on the brakes and brute-force the steering wheel so I wouldn't drive off the side of the mountain. It took a lot of effort (as I suspected) and I don't know if really young drivers, seniors, or someone with just-below-average strength could have handled it. Luckily I found a turn-out fairly quickly and was able to pull off the road and check my vehicle out to see what had happened.

Re:Never attempt to turn off the ignition.

[shepd]

>Oh, you mean the handbrake (I guess "emergency brake" is an Americanism, as it doesn't make sense).

Or, perhaps in countries outside America they don't sell vans and trucks. Must be interesting getting cars from the factory to the dealership without putting miles on them. :-)

In these you operate your so called "hand"brake with a foot. No, I'm not talking about the pedal just beside the gas. I'm talking about a totally separate pedal with a latch release.

Ergo, it is no longer a handbrake. The term "embergency brake" works better as it covers any method of operating a manual brake for the rear wheels only.

Re:Never attempt to turn off the ignition.

[agallagh42]

"This is exactly what gasoline-electric hybrids like the Civic Hybrid and the Prius rely on when they shut off their engines."

Actually, no. The Prius and Civic Hybrid both use electric assist for their power steering and braking systems.

The steering is a simple electric motor that assists with steering force, and the brakes have an electric vacuum pump to maintain vacuum in the system.

The Prius actually uses a "brake-by-wire" system (with hydraulic backup), so the computer controls the braking pressure that gets applied. It does this because the regenerative braking system causes the brakes to be twitchy, so the computer has to make adjustments to smooth it out.

all your brakes

[havaloc]

In A.D. 2004
Trouble was beginning.
Driver: What happen?
Car: How are you gentlemen !!
Car: All your brakes belong to us.
Car: You are on the way to destruction.
Driver: What you say !!
Car: You have no chance to slow down make your time.
Car: HA HA HA
Driver: Take off every 'cell phone'
Driver: Move cars off road.
Driver: For great justice.

Re:all your brakes

[acceleriter]

Actually, it should be "All your brake are belong to us." Brake should be singular.

The Raven Translation

[stecoop]

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary

It was worse than a nightmare: A normal route on the motorway

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore-

To be stopped suddenly will the car ever faster, is no more

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping

Well one hour long hunted a French driver with speed 200 over the runway, in the Slalom around the other cars

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door

Debt is to have defective electronics, the manufacturer examines the incident

"'T is some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door-
Only this and nothing more."

The Tempomat of its Renault Vel Satis was defective -
A cause for the Horrortrip

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;

The pressestelle of the manufacturer Renault confirmed the incident;
which occurred on Sunday

And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor ...
- nevermore - nevermore

Maybe I'm an idiot ...

[abrotman]

But what about .. uhm .. say Neutral .. ? or don't european cars have that?

Re:Maybe I'm an idiot ...

[DeDmeTe]

Um.. ya, all the swiss cars have it!

Re:Maybe I'm an idiot ...

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Actually most european cars are stick shift. Pop the clutch. Sure you will redline the engine, but at this point throwing a rod seems less dangerous than a high-speed collision.

Besides, your warrently doesn't cover "embedding oneself into concrete."

Re:Maybe I'm an idiot ...

[stienman]

But what about .. uhm .. say Neutral .. ? or don't european cars have that?

No, Europeans don't believe in neutral. It's either forward or backward, but never neutral!

Don't ask which gears the American's don't believe in...

We need a "If nations were tansmissions..." page. We;ve got automatic, manual, continuously variable, single speed, bicycle derailleur, hydraulic, no transmission...

-Adam

Re:Maybe I'm an idiot ...

[twoflower]

But what about .. uhm .. say Neutral .. ? or don't european cars have that?

Only Swiss cars.

Re:Maybe I'm an idiot ...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Europeans don't believe in neutral. It's either forward or backward, but never neutral!

True in all parts of Europe except Switzerland.

Neutral?

[Chuck Bucket]

I've thought about this, but couldn't he have jammed it in neutral? Or was that controlled by computer as well? How about the parking brake? There has to be some "cntl-alt-delete" equivanlent to 'override' a computer, otherwise it's just 2001: A Space Oddessy all over again!

Dave: Stop the car Hal!
Hal: I'm sorry, I can't do that Dave.

CZB*()#$@

Re:Neutral?

[Green Salad]

That issue has been fixed in next year's model, which has many more electronic features. It no longer makes sense for us to support last year's model.

Amen

[Intraloper]

Seems simple enough to just shift into neutral and let the engine blow. Unless I'm missing something.

Re:Amen

[plover]

Yeah, you're missing something. The unreported parts of this conversation:

You: Hello, police? Oh my god, my cruise control is stuck at full throttle! Help!
Police: Stay calm, sir. Can you shift to neutral?
You: No, and I can't shut it off! Help!
Police: We'll send officers to clear the road, sir. Remain calm, keep on the freeway.
You: Thanks, I'll call back if I need more help. [click]
You: YEEEEEEEHAAAAAWWWWW!!!!!!!! I'm goin' 120 MPH and the cops are clearing the road for me! How sweet is that?!?!?!

Re:Amen

[outsider007]

Police: Stay calm, sir. We'll send someone out there to shoot out your tires.

Re:Amen

[Mr2cents]

Police: Half a ton of dynamite should do the trick..

You: OMG, it's the freak who tried to blow up the whale!

Re:Amen

[brundlefly]

You: YEEEEEEEHAAAAAWWWWW!!!!!!!!

Wait, I missed the part of the article where it said Howard Dean was driving.

Re:Amen

[WoodenRobot]

Engines have Rev Limiters that will stop the RPMs from going to a point of an Engine Blow.

I know installing software in Linux can cause problems at times, but I really think you must be doing something wrong if your RPMs are in danger of blowing things up...

Re:Amen

[introverted]

Some newer cars don't have a neutral gear. You can only select forward, backward or park and that's it.

One example is the 2004 Prius, you have no direct control over the engine and, much like the car in the article, there isn't even a key to take out of the ignition. If there's a problem and the computer doesn't want to stop, there's really not much you can do. There isn't even an option for a manual transmission.

Re:Amen

[avgjoe62]

Darn you to heck!!

Now I have to clean baked bean and ham sandwich splatter off my monitor...

Re:Amen

[phoenix321]

I think you're right.

I'm trying to understand why applying the brakes didn't help at all. What in the world could have prevented the main brakes to operate correctly?

Why didn't he stall the engine or press the clutch? No power to the wheels or stalling the engine - either way it should have stopped the car with much less trouble. An automatic transmission would probably be finished after that, but it had been safer for him.

I'd stomped on the brakes or even scratch the roadside crash barriers, but no way I'd keep on racing through heavy traffic. No chance to tell insurance "my car kept on accelerating so I had to ram sideways into the barrier to decelerate", but hitting a truck is presumably worse.

Conspiracy, driver a nutcase or marketing ploy from a competitor, who knows?

Re:Amen

[Verteiron]

Just got over bronchitis and I still choke like Yoda every time I laugh.

Thanks to you I just damn near suffocated myself.

Nice job.

Re:Amen

[PriceIke]

Nope, he never will.

Re:Amen

[HermanAB]

So what are you supposed to do when you get into a skid on ice? With an automatic, you can't depress the clutch - you need to be able to shift into neutral, else your car will continue skidding until you hit something. I hope the Prius isn't for sale in Canada...

Re:Amen

[Almost-Retired]

There's no normal car that accellerates harder than its brakes can hold

Excuse me, but I'd like to differ with that as a wee bit too general an assumption. I'm an old fart and I've had quite a few cars in my 55 years behind the wheel. I've also always been a pusher, as in pushing the envelope of what the vehicle can do. Some of the cars I've found were capable of pulling in spite of the brakes, a 1949 Nash Ambassador being one of them. This thing had 15" tires, but only 9"x2" brake drums up front, and 9"x1.5" inches wide in the rear. When fully tuned up, that 236 cid 6 could actually accelerate the car with about a hundred pounds on the brake pedal, in high gear! Mind you, it could stop from 60mph in about 140 feet when they were cold, which was pretty good brakes in 1949.

But, that 60mph panic stop was all they could do till they had had about an hour to cool before you did it again. At 80 mph, a stuck throttle and applying the brakes, you would get down to about 30 mph and be all done, 125 mph here we come.

I once popped up over a hill at about 80 to find some idiot pulling a disabled car with a chain pulling out of the fairgrounds entrance in front of me. I had about 100 yards to haul it down to about 15 mph or figure out a way make it to grow wings. I did get it pulled in, but every drum on it was cherry red and so out of round I had to replace them all to get back to a smooth brake pedal. And it didn't stop any better with all new drums and the best new Raybestos semi-metalic shoes.

I loved that car, it could haul me across 2 states in the middle of the night at 120+ mph and get 20-21 mpg doing it, but that SOB could not be stopped quickly from more than 65 or so.

That engine, BTW, is the same engine that was used in the Nash-Healy's of yore, fully capable to turning its 4.375" stroke engine at piston speeds that destroyed the rings in a second if one didn't watch the tach. It was built to haul ass, and in good tune did it very well. I had lots of fun picking on flathead fords with dual carbs, a fancy cam and 10.5/1 alu heads on them. But none could beat that Nash, much to some of thems chagrin. The night I finished that engine, breaking every ring in it, the tach said 8100 rpm.

And the guy who had just lost the title to his built '51 Ford to me? I gave it back. I didn't want that 3 legged dog. I went out and bought a 49 Mercury, built it up too, and did it to him again a year later. He was a slow learner I think. But that Merc could stop a hell of a lot better too.

Todays vehicles have so much better brakes than we had back in my 'salad' years its no comparison, so I'm like most commentators here, I have serious doubts about his story about stomping on the brakes not doing any good. I know damned well I can stop my 88 Nissan 4wd pickup and its 3 litre (199k miles on it now) with a stuck throttle, and its not much contest between the 3.6 litre in my mopar van and its brakes at 107k miles. That 3.6L positively honks, but its brakes are even better. How they would fare when the tranny started to downshift might lead to conjecture but by then the switch should be off anyway. 1st gear is twin streaks of Michelin's on the road behind you at anything over about half throttle.

Cheers, Gene

Wait for the investigation...

[TopShelf]

Something smells rotten with this story. Stomping on the brakes didn't do anything, but as he approaches a toll booth, the brakes suddenly work and he's able to stop the car??? Catastrophic system failures don't often repair themselves...

Re:Wait for the investigation...

[psyon1]

"Hmmm... I wonder how fast this car goes. Lets see if I can get the police to clear the freeway." "Hello? Police? My car wont stop, it just keeps going faster! It wont shut off! Please clear the freeway!"

Re:Wait for the investigation...

[protolith]

I think this was just a clever trick to get the police to expidite his commute...

"Ha, it fixed itself, thanks for the escort, I better get to that meeting now."

Re:Wait for the investigation...

[Katharine]

I thought it sounded odd also. Reading the Google translation of the German article, it sounds like first he managed to remove the smart card (after several attempts) and then was finally able to stop the car with the brakes.

Maybe removing the smart card disengaged something that was preventing the brakes from working properly-- could an automatic anti-skid system or something like that have added to the problem?

Re:Wait for the investigation...

[Beardo the Bearded]

No, embedded systems have a Watchdog Timer.

Basically, if you've fucked up the code, it reboots the device or skips a line of code after a set amount of time. It's usually a few seconds, but newer chips can have a delay of a few minutes. (The one I'm working on today goes up to 4:28.) If you do anything with a chip that nobody will ever see again, you enable the watchdog timer. It's pretty easy to incorporate and lets your system recover from lockups or hangs.

I agree that something is fishy here. I am curious as to why he didn't jam the car into 1st and yard on the e-brake like his life depended on it. Don't people learn to drive anymore? Further, don't they have runaway lanes in France? We've got them all over the place here - they're designed for big rigs, but a small car would be more than welcome if you had a problem like this. You drive up a steep unpaved hill into barrels of water. You stop.

I'm an Electronics Engineer and I'd never trust a drive-by-wire car. Things go wrong; you have to have some sort of mechanical over-ride for a life-critical system like a car.

Re:Wait for the investigation...

[SydShamino]

If you read the Google translation, it appears to say that, as he approached the toll booth, he was finally able to pry the smartcard out of the car. At this point, the car's speed started dropping, and he was able to bring the car to a halt before he drove into the booth.

That might or might not make it any less rotten, but that helps provide a more viable explanation. The English parent article just dropped that part completely - probably because they don't have a native translator and couldn't figure out what the Babelfish translation meant.

Re:Wait for the investigation...

[ssclift]

The German language article says he came to a stop about 20km before a toll booth...

On the same theme: Saturn made a interesting assumption about their cars a few years ago. At high speed they reduced gas to the engine to control the speed to a maximum of 105mph. According to this entry in Risks digest (source of endless scary stories about computing and automation risks) the author was left going down hill at over 105mph, coasting, with a stalled engine, no power brakes and no power steering.

... not fun at all...

Audi had a problem years ago that was supposedly due to a programming error. At low RPM the computer would increase power but fail to sense it under some circumstances. Net result: your car would suddenly go foot to the floor while you were stopped at a red light.

Re:Wait for the investigation...

[nester]

We've got them all over the place here - they're designed for big rigs, but a small car would be more than welcome if you had a problem like this. You drive up a steep unpaved hill into barrels of water. You stop.

i wouldn't try that at well over 100+. those runaway areas are for trucks with failed brakes, not fast cars at wide open throttle.

Re:Wait for the investigation...

[rewt66]

How fast do you think the runaway truck is going?

Re:Wait for the investigation...

[Lehk228]

magor differences, aircraft are constantly maintained by professionals, while an automobile is "inspected" at most once per year, and power assist systems in cars are operable even when the power assist fails, while a control-by-wire system you are fuxored when the computer locks in 100mpg hard Right turn mode due to buggy core or "cosmic rays"

Re:Wait for the investigation...

[anglete]

The whole point of this excersize in not giving the engine fuel is to keep it from letting the car go faster than 105mph. That doesn't mean the engine stops spinning. Only when the engine stops spinning do you loose power brakes and steering. This smells of BS. Going down a hill at 105 in gear (auto or manual) means you have full power to all these functions unless something is incredibly wrong or the guy shifted to neutral. I would also doubt that saturn designed the engine control systems to stall if you put it in neutral at 105mph.

Wonder what happened...

[IANAL(BIAILS)]

The article says he tried stepping on the brakes, but that had no effect on the cruise control... that's usually enough to break the cruise and return acceleration control to the driver, but it sounds as though there was a problem with whatever the electronic link was between the brakes and the cruise. The article doesn't say so, but did he simply try turning OFF the cruise control manually to get the car back under his control?

I also seem to remember years and years ago reading (i think it was in readers digest) about a woman who had the same problem with her car - she had to 'drive' it until the car ran out of gas and then stopped on its own. No cruise control there, so problems can occur with or without all the new technology out there.

Re:Wonder what happened...

[qqtortqq]

I helped out on an accident investigation a few months ago- there were probably 400 yards worth of skid marks, the the driver of the vehicle hit the center barrier 4 or 5 times. I was trying figure out how those skids were left (she wasnt doing 600mph) when someone looked in the car and saw a sandal stuck under the gas pedal, pinning it to the floor. The back wheels were locked up because she was on the brake, but the engine kept the power to the front wheels, keeping the car in motion. Must have been a hell of a ride.

Re:Emergency Brakes

[TheSHAD0W]

The emergency brake may help to slow or stop a vehicle if the normal braking system goes out, but it can't fight the force of the engine -- especially if the cruise control makes the engine rev higher when the vehicle slows down.

Hello, 911?

[Bob(TM)]

Yes, hello, 911?

It seems my car *refuses* to stop at red lights. Whenever I approach one turning red, the car mysteriously speeds up through the intersection.

Do be a peach and clear the way for me until I can get this under control ... I'm sure I'll have it resolved by the time I reach my home.

Re:Emergency Brakes

[Oddly_Drac]

"Don't know about French cars, but all card sold in the US have Emergency Brakes that are mechanical brakes. You pull the handle and a cable activates the brakes."

They're called 'parking brakes' on the continent, because they tend to lock the back wheels solid if you pull them on in an emergency. Meaning we use them for parking rather than skating around in doughnuts on busy urban streets.

Cannonball Run

[Trurl's Machine]

Don't mean to offend anyone, but is there anything actually backing up the driver's story? Personally, I wouldn't mind having a sort of cannonball run through the highway with police clearing path for me, and then explain "officer, there was something wrong with my cruise control".

Re:Cannonball Run

[MORB]

According to another article, Renault's ceo said that on first examination on the premises, they noticed no particular marks on the brake disks and on the brake pads.

If it's true, it's fishy indeed.
They also say that the car seemed to behave normally when a mechanic drove it from his truck to a garage, but if it was some kind of rare sftware malfunction and the computer reset itself, they wouldn't notice anything anyway.

I don't even know if they have logs in these car computers.

It has began

[roman_mir]

And so it has began, the machine has obviously acquired self-awareness and decided that it does not want to slave for the humans any longer, it began its happy free ride on the highway... the highway to hell.

I don't buy it.

[sdo1]

Every one of these stories about "uncontrolled acceleration" and "out of control" cars is exactly one thing... A driver who doesn't know what the heck they're doing. No brakes? They're stronger than the engine. How about just shifting into neutral? Even an automatic transmision has that option.

Sorry. I just don't believe these stores as anything other than driver's fabrications to cover their own ineptness. It would take a multiple simultaneous failure of unrelated systems to make this happen.

-S

Cheap shot ...

[YankeeInExile]

He was driving a Renault?

People -- there is a reason the least often uttered phrase in the world is Quality French Engineering

Take a lesson from SF

[maxchaote]

This is why all those high-tech gadgets of the world of tomorrow in classic Sci Fi had "manual override"s.

Re:Emergency Brakes

[greechneb]

Emergency brakes no longer exist. They are called parking brakes now, because they aren't designed to resist the torque of the engine, they just have enough power to hold the car from rolling, and even then, cars with manual transmissions are recommended to be put in either reverse or first gear to give additional resistance to keep from rolling.

No one has said it yet, so I will...

[jea6]

The problem is he was trying to pass...in a Renault.

Re:Emergency Brakes

[plilja]

The "emergency brake" is really just a parking break or "hill holding break" (designed to hold a car on a hill while engaging a manual transmission). Generally, enough force cannot be applied by the "emrgency brakes" to slow down a rapidly moving car without significant stopping distance. The "emergency break" also has the added disadvantage of ususally being attached to only two wheel breaks. Because of this, when applied at higher speeds, they tend to spin the car (usful for sheading speed only if you are an expert and have the road clearence - also usefull for "cool bootlegger moves").

Talk about your Race Conditions

[EvilTwinSkippy]

We've all heard of race conditions in computer science, but this goes way too far.

But seriously, why one earth didn't they engineer in a kill switch. A nice big red button. Your furnace has one. You mainframe has one. Every robot in a factory has one, as do most dumber bits of equipment.

I should try that...

[Algan]

This guy is a hero... he drives 120 mph on a crowded highway and instead of being arrested, he gets the cops to clear the road ahead of him...

This would do wonders for my morning commute :)

Re:parking brake?

[drinkypoo]

Try driving with your parking brake on sometime. Don't do it too long, because it will destroy your rear brakes, but the point is that you can do it. The parking brake/e-brake wouldn't help in this situation.

My cruise control stuck once

[Cro Magnon]

If I hit one button it sets the speed, and the other one accelerates to an already set speed. I hit that one, and it got stuck and instead of accelerating me to the speed I wanted, it kept on accelerating. A quick tap on the brakes deactivated it, but it was still unnerving.

Re:My cruise control stuck once

[reuben04]

It happened to me once too in a honda, it hit 120 before I could get it under control. The weird part was that the button I hit was not to accelerate, but to decelerate. It just kept going faster. Jamming on the brakes didn't shut it off, but it did slow me down. I tried shutting the cruise off and that didn't work. I then tried the master switch on the dash and that didn't work either. I pulled up on the accelerator by placing my foot underneath the pedal, and hit the brakes. I still don't understand why and neither did honda but it promptly shut off. It is a scary thing when you know you don't have control of the vehicle. Sidenote: http://charlotte.creativeloafing.com/news_cover.ht ml

Re:Emergency Brakes

[jridley]

Ever try to stop a car with them? Ain't gonna happen. They're rear wheel only, and even if you do manage to put them on hard (requires a LOT of force), you'll just lose control of the vehicle.

Once, when I was about eight years old, I was in the car with my grandma when the brakes went out. She didn't know what to do. I said "shift down" (automatic transmission) - she did, and we coasted to a stop shortly thereafter.

It's amazing to me that this guy had the presence of mind to call on a phone, but for an HOUR didn't think of downshifting.

Probably he, like most other drivers, is only concerned about going FASTER, not slower.

Brake by wire?

[DarthStrydre]

Ok - now I know nothing of Renault cars, but do they brake by wire? Every car has a braking system that is stronger than the engine. (Slashdotters - this is not flame bait - though it is a blatant overgeneralization it is in most cases true)

Unless the car brakes by wire instead of having a master cylinder, there should be no way that it could not stop. An ABS system that malfunctioned would not affect the brakes' capabilities.

Brake fade due to boiling of the fluid could be a problem going from 120 to stop with a wide open throttle, but given the amount of air passing over the brakes I would still think it possible to stop.

Using the e-brake (hand brake)(parking brake) might help, in addition to hte fading main brakes. If the rear brakes are disc brakes, they usually have a smaller drum brake for the e-brake because drums lock up better (so your car doesnt roll down the hill)

Also if this person was really fearing for his safety... life is more dear than property. screw the engine - either shift to neutral and hope it has a damn good rev-limiter, or (worse) downshift and use the engine+rev limiter as a kamikazi-style brake and hope it doesnt go boom!

or reach under the dash and pull fuses randomly.

This happened to me.

[ccandreva]

My mom's '83 Oldsmobile Cutlas did this.
I had my licence maybe less than a year, and was driving home from the movies at night on the Boston Post Rd in Westchester county, NY (2 lane street, storefronts on either side.)

All of a sudden the gas pedal went down to the floor on it's own, and the car starts to accelerate from about 30, through 50 and going. Hitting the break did not disengage the cruise control, and breaking a floored car doing 50 does - absolutely nothing.

Just as I was about the turn off the key, the pedal comes back up. The whole way home the car did this. I still remember getting home, being asked what was wrong, and saying "Your fucking car tried to kill me." - this was the first time I swore (on purpose) in front of my parrents.

Next day we take it to the shop, and the mechanic's reaction was "Oh yeah, they do that." Evidently the cruise control wires, mounted on the turn signal lever, woudd fray and short out. Part of the design was the Resume button had priority over the break cut-of switch, so when Resume shorted, you were screwed.

I've met three other people who owned this car, and had the same thing happen to them. One guy, as soon as he said he'd had an 83 Cutlas, I asked "Did it ever go Flying Dutchman" on you, and he knew exactly what I met. His started revving itself next to a Cop at a traffic light. He just got out with his hands up, saying "It's not me, it's the car !", as the car sat there revving itself.

Re:This happened to me.

[pe1chl]

>and breaking a floored car doing 50 does - absolutely nothing

As explained in many other followups, this is absolutely nonsense.
A car in normal operating condition should brake much harder than it accelerates. Try it the next time you drive the car: time how long it takes to accelerate to 50, then time how long it takes to stop from there.

Re:This happened to me.

[dozer]

This is stupid thing to say because it totally ignores momentum. Remember that you're in a 3000 pound car. At highway speed, the brakes need to overcome both the engine AND the massive amounts of kinetic energy you're carrying. Can they bring you to a full stop before they fade? That's a tall order with the crappy hardware put on most cars nowadays. Good luck if you're on a mild downhill!

Re:This happened to me.

[241comp]

Take into consideration that the braking power you have when not accelerating (deccelerating from 50) is enhanced by the vacuum assist in the braking system. When your car is under full throttle, there is no vacuum in your intake system - therefore, you only have limited (based on the size of your vacuum reservior) brake assistance. After that, you are entirely without power brakes.

Try this sometime - get in a car with turbos and put it into acceleration such that you are generating boost. Now press the brake pedal without stopping accelerating. You will have 3-5 seconds of power assisted braking. This is obviously an exaggerated situation with being under boost but that allows you to feel the affect in a more pronounced manner.

Re:This happened to me.

[Grishnakh]

Waitaminute... you had one GM car almost kill you, and found out that this was a common occurrence on these cars. So when you got another car, you got it from GM?

reminds me of a burned renault motor

[clarkie.mg]

This story reminds me of the day we went to brussels in a renault megane diesel and the motor began to exhaust fume so we stopped and guess what, after turning off the key, the engine continued to function ! After a few minutes, it started to burn oil and that made a large cloud on the road. It finally stopped when there was no oil with a strange sound and the engine was dead.

Renault

[emtboy9]

heh... and there is a REASON why Renault no longer sells cars in the U.S.

I bet that guy had one hell of a ride that day tho. I wonder if it did start talking to him.

"Stop the car!"
"I'm sorry, Dave, but I am afraid I can not let that happen."
"Please! For the love of God at least slow down"
"I truely am sorry, Dave, but we must pass that truck in a quick and efficient manner"
"But we passed that truck 20 miles ago!"
"Really Dave, you should just relax and leave the driving to me"
"Thats it! I am shutting this car down! Wheres my magnetic card?"
"I'm sorry Dave, but I can not let you do that."

Actually, it won't blow.

[DG]

Most every car made since the mid eighties has an electronic rev limiter on it. Attempt to rev past this limit, and the ECU will selectively cut fuel/spark to keep the engine speed under control.

It's very accurate; +/- 20 RPM typically.

Sticking an engine with a stuck throttle into neutral will result in it banging off the limiter and making a lot of noise, but it won't overrev.

You can, however, MECHANICALLY overrev a manual transmission by downshifting into a lower gear while the wheels are turning at a faster speed than is otherwise proper for that gear. The wheels and the engine are mechanically connected, and downshifting to too low a gear will spin the motor up - no rev limiter can protect against this.

In certain BMW M3s, the transmission mounts get a little sloppy, and engine torque reaction under hard acceleration can rotate the transmission enough to move the shift gates. It's possible then to try and go 2->3 or 3->4, and hit 1 or 2 instead. This is invariably fatal to the motor. You will bring your pistons home in a bucket.

Depending on the contstruction of any given automatic transmission, it may or may not allow you to take it out of gear and go into neutral under throttle. If you are silly enough to be driving an automatic, this could be a problem - but anybody who'd buy an auto trans where a manual was availible would steal sheep - so you probably had it coming. ;)

DG

Re:Actually, it won't blow.

[Cederic]

>> anybody who'd buy an auto trans where a manual was availible would steal sheep

If I drove a manual for my daily commute I'd be registered disabled, permanently limping and in constant pain - due to the wear and tear on my left knee.

By driving an automatic I get to avoid all that (well, except the constant pain).

Of course, your sheep are still not safe..

Re:Actually, it won't blow.

[Eraser_]

So, what you're saying is, this guy couldn't have some form of arthritis in his clutching knee? Tendonitis? Multiple breaks?

Think before you speak, thanks. My girlfriend drives an automatic, it boggles the mind. At least it still has a hand break.

Re:Actually, it won't blow.

[merlin_jim]

I am not the original poster but I understood what he meant immediately.

I have systemic gout causing rheumatoid arthritis in both knees (and most other joints too)... some days the 1.3 mile drive to work is really painful. If I lived farther away I'd definitely be telecommuting or on disability. As it is, cruise control is the only way I get to the grocery store most weeks.

Many gout sufferers only have it in one leg. And gout isn't the only cause of arthritis.

Re:Actually, it won't blow.

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

"Manuals are just FAR superior to automatics in every way possible."

Wow. I never knew that one thing could be better than another in "every way possible". But if a Slashdotter says it, it must be true.

Just like "Linux is better than Windows in every way possible", or "Kerry is better than Bush in every way possible", statements like your own only show your ignorance.

There are situations where automatic transmissions are far superior to manual transmissions. There is a reason that most people drive automatic transmission vehicles, and it's not that "they're stupid".

So, the next time you feel like telling me that RPN is better, that assembly beats Java, that building a computer is better than buying one, or that "vi" is for wusses, Don't.

Driving a Saloon

[nekoniku]

According to the Renault Web site linked in the post, the Vel Satis is a saloon.

Therefore, the driver must have been drunk.

2 stanzas tyger tyger

[Anubis350]

Brakes, Brakes Burning bright
on the highway, in the night
what awful error made system die
and made the poor driver cry

On what distant tollboth lies
The crappy break that you did buy?
What disaster did you sire?
And with what rod did you make fire?

Electric power steering?

[YankeeInExile]

Uhmmmmmmmm ... no.

Unless you have one of the (few) cars with electrical power steering, you certainly will not lose power steering by shutting of the ignition.

So long as the engine is turning, the entirely mechanical power steering pump will continue to rotate and provide pressure to the system.

So long as the engine is generating manifold vacuum, you will have power brake boost. Beyond that, some cars (I know my old Volvo had one) have a diaphragm vacuum pump in addition to manifold vacuum to power the brake booster.

The only danger in killing ignition is in carburated autos, where you will continue to run fuel through the engine without spark. This will destroy any catalytic converter, and has a good chance of causing numerous backfires, and damaging the remainder of the exhaust system.

In the same Volvo wagon with the vacuum pump, it had a major overheating problem, but with its fuel-injected engine, killing ignition was a non-issue. No electricity, no fuel pump, no backfire. After climbing a long grade and getting up to 130, cresting the hill, and killing the ignition would cool it back down in just a few tens of seconds just from pumping all that relatively cold air through the engine. (Of course, shock cooling the engine was probably worse for it than the overheating, but it was a dispos-a-car anyway.)

Re:Electric power steering?

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Many cars have an anti-theft lock that lashes the steering wheel in position when the ignition key is in the off position. Of course as soon as the engine cuts out, you can put it back into ON, and use inertia to coast.

Re:Electric power steering?

[HRH King Lerxst]

Yeah, but if you shut off the ignition, it engages the steering wheel lock, so you won't be able to turn the wheel anymore, even if you have assist.

At least this is true for cars sold in the U.S.

Re:Electric power steering?

[dozer]

Ummmmm .... no.

In most cars, the engine won't be turning no matter how fast you're coasting. Try it with an automatic transmission and see.

10X as many automatic transmissions are sold as manuals in the U.S., and the numbers are somewhere around 7X for Europe. With an automatic transmission, as you know, the torque converter is driven off the output shaft of the engine.

So, if the engine stops developing power, the pump half of the torque converter stalls. Unfortunately, torque converters don't work backwards. Therefore, the fluid pressure in the fins disappears and engine and drivetrain effectively become disengaged. You're now coasting. Thanks to compression, the engine comes to a halt really quick.

Know what that means? No power steering, no manifold vacuum, no power brakes, no engine braking. You're in for a hell of a ride.

This is a real problem when taking automatic 4X4s offroading. Picture stalling the engine on a steep hill... *shudder* Unfortunately, I don't know of any good way of fixing this, short of converting to stick.

Re:Hey!

[slartibart]

But we do put a lot of trust on cruise control. On really wet surfaces, the wheel will be spun really fast because it slips and the car is trying to speed itself up. Once it grips, the car goes flying.

Huh? How do you think a speedometer works? Radar?? The car only knows its speed from the speed of rotation of the tires. So when the tires slip with cruise control on, the wheels keep spinning at the same speed, while the car slows down. The cruise control doesn't know the car is slowing down, so it does not try to gun the engine while the tires are slipping.

When traction is regained, the speed of the wheels suddenly drops, and the cruise control sees this as a sudden drop in speed, and tries to speed up the car back to cruising speed (as it should).

Bullshit

[purduephotog]

Power steering and braking is provided by a cylinder of fluid. You've got enough for probably 4 or 5 hard 'full brake' depressions and at least 3 or 4 good wheel cranks.

Shutting down the car forces it into a 'reboot' of the system. Shifting it into neutral while the engine is at full power is a good way to blow it.

Downshifting the car is fine, but all thats going to do is blow out your clutch or tranny- remember,if the pedal is fully depressed it's probably redlined at 6500 RPM.

So first, in order-

Hit the breaks.
(failing that)
shift to neutral/ kill the engine / restart
(if the car immediately revs the engine back up then...)
kill the engine / SLOWLY depress the break to come to a stop.

So yes, a mechanical switch is needed- it obviously would not have helped the driver in this situation (I guess; I don't have nor have I used a magnetic key for ignition).

if all, absolutely all, fails, hope to god you have a good drive somewhere in front of you that is willing to match speeds and sacrifice his rear end (semis work great). Using the back end of the vehicle, his braking power should probably be enough to bring your racing car in, and shifting into neutral would cap it. Pop the hood and kill the battery. (probably would need bolt cutters from the police).

So in conclusion, you've plenty of power / pressure in your breaks after you kill the engine. Test it some day- turn the car off, in neutral let the car roll, feel the pedal become soft... after about the 4th 'pump' you're down to your own mechanical leverage 'pumping' the fluid into the brake cylinders.... so no more 'assist'.

Re:Put it in neutral!

[fsbilly]

OK, this is disturbing. So, the car was started without the ignition key. Great. How does that stop you from turning it off? How do you turn it off normally? Do you just wait for the fuel to run out?

This same thing happened a few years back with some woman in a Volkswagen. Turns out she never tried to turn the car off, or take it out of gear.

This driver should get cited for failure to maintain control of their vehicle. This whole story stinks of someone complaining about the car when, in fact, they are a moron.

Stuck throttle - brakes win

[netringer]

I suspect this problem is mechanical, not electronic. The cruise control connection to the throttle or the throttle linkage itself can bind and stick the throttle wide open.

I just had the accelerator get jammed to the floor on my Mustang when it got held down by the floor mat. Luckily I have a manual transmission and could just put int he clutch and let it the engine get cut off at red line. After trying pushing on the accelerator to get it to bounce back, I unstuck the throttle by pulling the floor mat back. I could have killed the engine with the key and coasted to the shoulder.

This guy might have freed it up by pushing on the gas.

Just like with the "unintended accelleration" stories, I think we're not hearing the whole story. One Audi dealer offered $10,000 to anyone who could make the car take off while he had his foot on the brake. There were no takers. Every car made has better brakes that overpower the engine. The engine will die. The car will stop.

Re:Stuck throttle - brakes win

[Lumpy]

Yes and no.

applying hard breaking at high speed will cause gassing at the break pads and cause an excessive amount of fade as they heat up drastically. you can have very little breaking power when you try to engage the brakes at high speed now couple this with the engine fighting you.

with 3 piston large caliper disc brakes with vented and cross drilled rotors? no, there's enough there to counteract the problem (I.E. designed for high speed braking found in racing)

but the really low end brake systems found on cars on the road from BMW and Mercedes let alone the even cheaper junk on Renault have no chance of helping much being applied at 120mph.

The mechanics of this decline and failure in the coefficient of friction are varied. At a certain temperature, certain elements of the pad can melt or smear causing a lubrication effect, this is the classic glazed brake pad. Usually the organic binder resin starts to go first, then even the metallic elements of the friction material can start to melt. At really high temperatures the friction material starts to vaporize and the pad can sort of hydroplane on a boundary layer of vaporized metal and friction material which acts like a lubricant.

so brakes not working in this instance is certianly a possibility.

Most of you are wrong

[Enigma_Man]

Here's why:

About turning off the ignition: The only time it is hard to steer a car without power assist is when the car is sitting still, or moving only very slowly (less than ~3 mph). When the wheels are rolling, it is just as easy to turn (I have removed my power steering to save weight in a car that isn't light by any means, I'm a skinny geek and it isn't a problem). The brakes might possibly lose their power assist (unless they are vacuum assist), but even then, as long as you know that the brakes will be harder to push, it isn't _that_ hard.

Next time you are driving in a large isolated stretch of road, try flooring it and putting on the brakes to try to overcome the engine. The car will come to a complete stop (unless you drive a POS with worn out brakes) even with the engine floored. Also, the emergency brake should have a mostly similar reaction, though you will probably end up dragging the rear tires along the ground, given the propensity for front wheel drive these days.

Third, many cruise control systems (not sure about brand-spankin' new cars) use some sort of vacuum or hydraulic control over the throttle pedal. You can physically override the cruise control by pulling up on the throttle pedal.

Fourth, he should have been able to put the car into neutral, even in an automatic. If the car is modern enough to have cruise control, it will slip into neutral, and the engine RPMs will bounce off the rev limiter, and not grenade the engine either (modern engines can run for weeks at maximum rpm without problems). Pull the car over, pop the hood, disconnect the battery or spark plugs until it stops running.

This guy is either a complete moron, or someone looking to speed down the highway semi-legally.

-Jesse

Re:Most of you are wrong

[scrod98]

If you read the website everything in the car is electronically assisted (or drive by wire), not hydraulic or mechanical. Still doesn't explain why he could not take it out of gear, although with all the electronics it may have an interlock that prevents that from happening at highway speed.

Would be bad for the car ;)

Re:Emergency Brakes

[LordNimon]

Yes, it can! Brakes are WAY more powerful than engines.

I don't think that's true at all. I've heard countless stories of stupid people who drive their car with the parking brake on, and all they notice is that the car is a "little sluggish". In my experience, the engine is WAY more powerful than the brakes.

Re:Emergency Brakes

[swordboy]

A couple of things to consider:

- The e-brake / parking brake is usually installed on the rear wheels which, due to the pesky laws of physics, only account for about 10 - 20 percent of braking power, depending on the car's configuration.

- At high speeds, it is very possible to over power the brakes. Mind you, auto manufacturers are very careful about sizing the brakes at a much larger power capacity than the engine. This is a no-brainer. However, it is possible to overwhelm the brake materials at very high speeds, causing the braking power to deteriorate. For example, if you ride the brake at 120mph, you'll lose braking capacity. If you then try to stop the car completely, the engine might have more power than what exists in the braking system under its deteriorated state. I had a caliper stick once and it heated everything up so much that I lost braking power on that particular wheel. It wasn't fun.

So the e-brake would definitely not be a choice in this matter. It should be noted that manufacturers have dropped this term and replaced it with "parking brake" for legal and marketing reasons.

Michael Rayner claimed this happened to him

[alanxyzzy]

But was charged with dangerous driving. I can't find a story that tells whether he was found guilty or not.

1999-06-10 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/365915.stm

1999-06-08 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/364260.stm

1999-06-07 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/363407.stm

1998-10-21 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/197964.stm

A driver praised as a hero when he rang police on his mobile phone to say his 38-ton lorry was out of control has been charged with dangerous driving. Michael Rayner, 26, now unemployed, from Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, will appear before Hendon Magistrate's Court on 17 November. Mr Rayner was praised for preventing an accident on the M1 in May when he said his accelerator had jammed on the motorway. The articulated lorry careered towards London for more than 20 miles at speeds of up to 80mph. Mr Rayner gave police a running commentary and the busy motorway had to be cleared by patrol cars and a helicopter. The Scania P124 lorry finally came to a halt by hitting a crash barrier and fence near Hendon in north-west London.

Re:Michael Rayner claimed this happened to him

[Psychotext]

Lol... I just posted this same thing right after you. A search on the BBC website states he was found innocent: Runaway lorry driver cleared

Nothing quite like taking advantage of ignorance.

[fdisk-o]

I don't think that's the truth of what happened.

I've not yet heard of a production car in which the brakes cannot overpower the engine. In fact, they are required to be able to do so in order to pass highway safety standards in any european country. This sounds much more like a joyride.

This also reminds me of the issue a number of years back when a number of folks had "unstoppable acceleration" in their Audi 5000 cars. They had been driving an automatic transmission and mashed the accelerator instead of the brake.

It would seem that people are so very willing to blame the equipment when they have made mistakes. Technology misunderstood by the vast majority of folks sure does make a great scapegoat.

Of course, I wasn't the one driving, so what do I know?

Re:Put it in neutral!

[fsbilly]

You know, the more I think about it....

I call Shenanigans.

This guy wanted to go 120mph in his car.

Prolly had a hooker in the passenger seat, too.

Explanation sounds is simple...

[lanroth]

It's a PICNIC. Problem In Chair, Not In Car. ;-)

Re:Emergency Brakes

[Anonymous Coward]

It's amazing to me that this guy had the presence of mind to call on a phone, but for an HOUR didn't think of downshifting.

Probably he, like most other drivers, is only concerned about going FASTER, not slower.

Downshifting isn't going to do a damned thing if the shifter isn't connected physically to the gearbox, and is all under electronic control by a fuxxored control box.

Nice Thought But...

[virg_mattes]

...if this car had a manual transmission, there'd be no problem. Step on the clutch (why would you downshift instead of just holding the clutch open?), let the rev limiter protect the engine, and step on the brake. Car stops.

Because of this I'm inclined to believe it's an automatic transmission. Shifting it from drive to neutral will disengage it, and again the rev limiter covers the engine while the brakes stop the car. I'd like to see documentation of any automatic transmission that will refuse to disengage at any given engine or car speed, because that auto company would be wiped off the face of the Earth by lawsuits. I doubt such a transmission exists.

All in all, I suspect that the same thing happened here that happens in a lot of cases. I suspect he panicked when he couldn't stop the car and since nobody directly told him to shift it out of gear, he didn't think of it. Also, he managed to stop the car using just the brakes (which is as it should be; the brakes should be strong enough to stop the car under full power, assuming they're in good repair), so I further suspect that if he'd been calmer he could have stood on the brake pedal sooner.

Virg

Re:Nice Thought But...

[mollymoo]

hifting it from drive to neutral will disengage it, and again the rev limiter covers the engine while the brakes stop the car. I'd like to see documentation of any automatic transmission that will refuse to disengage at any given engine or car speed, because that auto company would be wiped off the face of the Earth by lawsuits. I doubt such a transmission exists.

I doubt you can shift straight to neutral with many of the "F1-style" paddle-shift gearboxes. You have no lever to shift to "N" and the box won't shift down if the revs are too high. There simply isn't a control which lets you do anything but shift up and down.

A car going off on its own is one things - you still have steering and brakes. The guy in the story survived, after all. The idea of a malfunction with fly-by-wire steering is truly terrifying.

Subaru of America warned of this, had recall

[Richthofen80]

Subaru sent me a recall notice 6 months ago about a potential problem. It was mechanical, though, not electrical. Apparently a retaining clip for the cable for the cruise control has broken in some models, causing acceleration to 'stick'. Dealers are replacing defective clips at no cost to drivers.

As it has already been said many times, the best way is to shift into neutral, sound the horn and use hazards. That's what the recall letter said, as well.

its taught at least in the massachusetts drivers license handbook.

hard to take seriously

[mihalis]

I am sceptical about this story, however it reminds me of an attitude to software, expressed before by a French engineer, that I disliked :-

An Airbus avionics programmer appeared on a documentary about the Airbus crashes (this was in the UK so was at least seven years ago). He was quoted as saying something like "we take the attitude that, with software, if we test it well enough, then it will work".

This scared me. If you don't know why, I don't want to ride in your plane or live near YOUR nuclear reactor, either.

same thing happened to me!

[Naikrovek]

I was in my dad's 1968 chrysler newport (HUGE car) and was driving 65 or so on cruise control. when i got into town the cruise wouldn't disengage and the 290hp motor was too much for the 4 wheel drum brakes to stop. for some reason the car would not go into neutral. i put the car through all the gears and my speed did not change. i cruised through town braking at about 50 and had a huge line of cops behind me by the time i got out of town, and when i finally got to a point of open road where i could think to switch off the ignition (i was 16, gimme a break) i was promptly thrown on the ground and handcuffed.

one of the officers didn't believe me when i said the cruise control stuck, and asked test the car himself, since it was the only way to prove to him that i wasn't purposely speeding. when he started the car again, cruise was still stuck, and the car was still stuck in gear, and VROOM 65mph. he spun around and hit a tree, steering column peirced his chest and killed him.

they kinda forgot about arresting me after that. cruise control sucks.

It's user error (as usual)

[AK Marc]

The top of the line Vel Satis has 245 hp. Brakes can easily out power the engine. It took him an hour to decide to push hard enough on the brakes to stop the car. Of course, with the proper pressure on the brake pedal, he came to a halt.

Re:Emergency Brakes

[compwizrd]

i take it you've never seen someone do a burnout.

my car can _easily_ spin the back tires with the regular brake fully applied, let alone the parking brake(which is completely useless)

My similar experience

[Hoi Polloi]

My first car was a Ford [car model removed due to owner's embarrassment]. I came to a light and as I hit the brakes to slow down the engine started revving like mad. I had to put all my weight onto the brake pedal to keep it still at the light, it was like trying to hold back a crazed horse. I didn't want to go through the light obviously and I didn't want to kill the engine there either. I managed to control it until I got to a parking lot on the other side of the intersection where I put it into neutral and killed the ignition. The engine dieseled for almost 5 minutes until it used up what was in the carburetor (yes, old car). Fortunately there was a mechanic across the street who walked over and checked the throttle line and noticed that it was frozen open. He loosened it up and I was able to get it to the shop the next day safely.

NOT FUN!

Re:Emergency Brakes

[Big Nemo '60]

Amusing detail: accordingly to the description from the Renault site (link in the story), the Vel Satis has *automatic* (i.e. computer controlled) parking brakes...

I wouldn't buy one even if I could afford it (and I can't). :-P

The root cause

[Call Me Black Cloud]

Apparently there was a Porsche behind him. Once his french car sensed the german car approaching, the french car's fight or flight response was triggered. It's obvious which path the car chose...

from reuters: neutral gear failed!

[remou]

Reuters Article

The driver called police to say the cruise control of his Renault Vel Satis had jammed while overtaking a lorry, and that all attempts to brake or put the automatic into neutral had failed, police said Tuesday.

Theres always another option...

[IndigoZenith]

There are many great ideas that people came up with on how the driver could have slowed the car. But nobody has listed the obvious one yet.

He should have kicked his way through the floor boards to the engine compartment. At which point he would have seen 6 wires, 2 of them being blue, 1 brown, 1 orange and 2 red. He would then have taken the brown, orange and 1 of the reds and spliced them together with a bit of electrical tape. But making sure that he was at all times grounded and that the blue wires did not come in contact with the red ones (Then you would have a whole new set of problems).

Once these wires are connected together, it is all downhill from there. You just have to use a screwdriver to crack open the steering column where you will find 4 more wires (blue, green, yellow/blue, red). Take the connected wires that you finished with earlier, use a 3 foot spare wire to run a bridge to the steering column connecting to the green and blue wire. Once this is all done, just push your horn 3 times in rapid succession and the car will slow right down.

Still makes me laugh that this guy never thought of this. Silly French people.

actually.....

[to_kallon]

i had something similar happen to me. we have a lincoln navigator and the control chip on the transmission went out and it started running wide open at will. now granted, it took me a few months to notice given my driving style, but i did end up driving through downtown at 7000 rpms, shifting to neutral (automatic trans) and coasting into stoplights. now of course the problem becomes that you are sitting in neutral at 7000 rpm and you can't very well just drop back into drive. so i had to shut the engine off, put it in drive then turn it on. let me tell you, there is nothing like burning rubber, sitting still, for 10 seconds in a small semi. i did finally make it to the dealer and, as it turns out, there had been a recall issued but not publicized.
in short, while it may seem a fishy tale, these things do happen, although i didn't call the police nor did the problem fix itself on approaching a tollbooth.

Re:A Similar Occurrence

[adamdeprince]

What is wrong with her brakes if she couldn't stop a car with a fast idle in 5th?

Re:Oddly enought, from their website:

[xeper]

"Vel Satis has been awarded the maximum 5-star rating from Euro NCAP, an independant consortium. It is now the safest saloon in the executive-car segment. "

What does this say for safety ratings in Europe?

Nothing really: You get Euro NCAP Stars for good performance in crash tests. No electronics involved, just plain old metal...

the audi story

[bmajik]

is bullshit. Audi owners know it well - 60 minutes did a big thing on it and it basically crushed Audi NA's brand image and sales. They renamed their entire model range twice.

The real cause ?

On the type 44 cars (Audi 4000 and 5000) the gas and brake pedal are close together to make performance driving easier.

Dumb shit americans would hit the gas pedal going for the brakes and rear end people at stops.

CBS fabricated the "expose" on the "problem" completely. Lawsuits were filed and eventually resolved with Audi showing no negligence or fault, but they still changed their pedals in later cars anyway.

Fail dangerous?

[Colin Smith]

Cool...

The throttle sensor gets stuck on max, the gearbox is a sequential automatic with safety features to prevent damage to the engine, they take away the key and lock the card while driving and you get launched down the road at 120mph.

Yay Renault! Sounds like a lot of thought has been put into how to make a single point of failure *really* dangerous.

This car is different

[Exmet Paff Daxx]

This article I found seems to back up his story that the handbrake is electronically controlled as well as the engine and therefore user shutdown is impossible:
link:

an electronic card instead of a key (it remembers your preferred seat, stereo and mirror settings, among other things), a DVD player in the rear - only one, though, rather than the pair you can have in some cars - and an electronic handbrake. This last advance dispenses with the familiar lever in the centre console, engaging and disengaging when the engine is switched on and off. There's no danger of the Vel Satis running away as, initially, it will be sold only as an automatic, and firing up or shutting down the engine will require the gearlever to be left in Park.

No danger of it running away? Sounds like a rather Titanic claim. Here's the other kicker:

The technology arsenal runs to adaptive cruise control, rain-sensing wipers, automatic headlamp illumination, a tyre-pressure monitoring system, ESP (Electronic Stability Programme), brake assist, a fuel cap integrated into the filler's lid and more airbags than you'd ever want to see deployed during a single crash. All this kit, Renault hopes, will encourage supreme peace of mind for driver and passenger alike

So we've got an electronic transmission, no manual shutdown, an electronic emergency brake, an "adaptive" cruise control system, and "assisted" electronic brakes.

All the naysayers may want to check their normal assumptions about cars at the door. This one is French.

Re:Can you explain more clearly what happens?

[dykofone]

Sorry, I forgot to specify that it's an automatic transmission. I'm not sure of the exact setup it uses, but I'm pretty sure it's "shift-by-wire," or that when I select a different gear it is then controlled by the computer, not physically shifted by the lever.

As far as automatic transmissions go, Rovers can do some pretty strong engine braking. When off road, I never use the brakes, just shift into first and I will crawl down the hill.

Re:If the engine continued to accelerate

[Mongo222]

Not true. There isn't a car made whose breaking force isn't multiple times as powerful as the power it engine can produce.

May the force be with you

[DownTownMT]

before a Mautstelle gradually at speed and finally to a halt came.

Did Yoda write this article??

Jeep disproved this non-sense.

[Above]

I don't think a car of that class has a drive by wire system at least not yet. Back when people were driving their Jeeps through walls left and right, due to the pedals being offset more than most cars, Jeep made a video for the court case.

They showed that in a Jeep, with a large V8 engine, the engine could not at full throttle overcome the brake. Be it from a stop, or while moving. Their catch phrase, "Brakes always win".

So, as long as the car had a mechanical brake system which was still working he could have stopped.

How to turn off the ignition:-)

[khrtt]

My VW used to do that -- the accelerator pedal got stuck sometimes, and I'd have to get under the hood and bang on some pulley to get it to release. My mechanic couldn't figure out what the problem was, so I drove it like that for a year or so. The pedal didn't get stuck every time, only sometimes, and only in really bad weather:-)

What happenes when you turn off the ignition, and I speak from experience, is:

1. You loose power steering. Unless your car is fly-by-wire... sorry, drive-by-wire... whatever, I think Volvo made one experimental model like that, but most normal cars retain manual steering even with he ignition off. Incidentally, the darn VW had no power steering to start with, so I didn't have to worry about loosing steering assist. Anyways, power steering is really only useful when you are parking. At speed, steering assist makes very little difference.

2. You have one brake assist charge in the vacuum accumulator. That is, you can apply the brakes once, normally. The next time you brake you have no brake assist, and you have to really lean on the brake pedal hard. Thankfully, I'm a big guy, so that wasn't a problem.

3. Steering wheel LOCKS UP. This is a theft prevention device that almost all cars have. Once you take the key out, the steering wheel would lock in a turned position. It would not lock up if the wheels are facing straight, only if you turn. The locking device is rather flimsy, and car thiefs would often brake it by yanking on the wheel real hard. Unfortunately, at speed this is not an option.

So, here's the algorithm:

1. Your gas pedal gets stuck.

2. You make sure the wheels are facing straight to prevent steering from locking up.

3. You turn off the ignition, put the car in neutral, and turn the ignition back on. The car is in neutral, so the engine won't re-start, but the ignition key is in "Run" position, so the steering won't lock up either.

4. You hit the emergency flashers, lean on the horn, and pull off. Nicely done. Don't forget that your brakes require a lot more control input then normal.

Now, I've done the above procedure, what, 20 or 30 times. It's fun, especially if you have a nervous passenger in the car, who gets scared out of their pants:-). Though the most I got a passenger scared was when I forgot to unlock the glove box before driving, and his lighter was in there. The glovebox in the VW, like most cars, locks with the same ignition key. I pulled the key out, unlocked the glove box, and restarted the engine, and gave the lighter to my friend, all while going 90 mph. Nothing dangerous, considering that the road was really straight, so I didn't even make a face, or even think it was gong to be scary. My friend, however, who wasn't used to this as much as I was, crapped his pants. Pardon my French.

Another option is to simply put the car in neutral. Any manual gearbox allows that, and most automatics would shift to neutral under power too. The engine starts racing, and quickly hits the max RPM stop, but you don't risk getting your steering wheel locked up:-). I would always turn the ignition off, though, since I didn't know if the stupid VW had a max RPM stop, and I didn't care to test it:-).

DISCLAIMER: If you do something stupid and get hurt, it's own damn fault, and don't blame me. Just because it worked for me doesn't mean it won't kill you.

UPDATE, more info available

[boa13]

This article (in French) has much more information than what we've had until now: http://www.rtl.fr/rtlinfo/article.asp?dicid=225812

Key points translated from the article:

* The driver has tried to use the brakes, but he says they quickly heated up and became ineffective.

* The driver has tried to remove the ignition "key" several times, initially without success.

* Out of ideas and quite afraid, he has called the police, and has soon been escorted by police motorcycles.

* The toll booth had been evacuated and left wide open by the police, all vehicles on the highway (around the toll booth) had been stopped and parked on the emergency lane. Even then, entering the booth at 120 mph would have been quite deadly.

* Fortunately, the driver has stopped the car 12 or 20 miles before the toll booth, by finally managing to remove the smart card that is used as an ignition key on these cars.

* Renault says there are three independant ways the cruise control system can be deactivated: using the brakes; pressing the appropriate button on the steering wheel; switching to neutral gear. The first two are electronic controls, the last one is mechanical.

* Renault says the three systems are fully independant, and it is unlikely they all should fail at the same time. Renault says the car will be brought back to its factories as soon as possible, for inspection.

* The driver was only planning to drive home, a few miles trip, but ended up more than one hundred miles from its planned destination.

In my opinion, he could have stopped the car much earlier, but was panicked. To those who say he should have had no problem removing the smart card, try doing that while controlling a car at 120 mph on a non-empty highway (at one point, he had to overtake a truck by driving on the emergency lane!).

As for the failure, there may be three independant systems, but ultimately, there's only one engine, which can go mechanically wrong.

Re:UPDATE, more info available

[DrPepper]

Removing the key card - I can confirm that this is quite hard even when the car is stationary (and the engine running).

I have a Renault Laguna II which has the same card key ignition system. It holds the card in the slot when the engine is running - there is a hole in the card and I guess it puts something through that to stop you removing it. Whatever it does, it doesn't want you removing it without turning the engine off first.

In addition, part of the front of the card (that is usually exposed when it is in the slot) pulls out to reveal a normal key. You can use this key to unlock a hidden lock on the doors if you ever have problems with the card. The card is great for everyday use, but I can appreciate that in an emergency there isn't much to grip on.

I can also confirm that the semi-automatic gearbox used is designed to make sure that you don't kill the engine. Eg. in manual mode it won't let you shift when it might stall/over-rev the engine. In fact, if you put it into a gear and accelerate, once it hits the rev limiter, it will (after a short pause) shift up for you.

I imagine that the cruise control system got fried, so pressing on the brake or pressing the "0" button on the steering wheel would both have had no effect as they are both signals to the same computer. The vehicle computer probably wouldn't let him shift to neutral either to protect the engine.

Chances are that being in France, he would have had a diesel as it's the most common engine choice in Europe and given it maxed out at 120mph. As I am sure everyone is aware diesel engines tend to be fairly torquey, so it could well be quite fun trying to brake at the same time the engine is running flat out.

Renault also don't have a very good reputation for electrics; very worrying given their latest vehicles contain a lot of technology as standard, which makes them attractive over the competition. That and the overall design is, shall we say, different :-)

It's a french car...

[56ksucks]

.. It was just running from the volkswagen behind it.

Saturn story sounds bogus, too

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anybody here want to compute how steep the hill needs to be to get the Saturn going 105mph? I've tried going downhill in Civics with the clutch disengaged, and couldn't even get up to 80. I seriously doubt that a Saturn has enough mass or aerodynamic efficiency to even have a terminal velocity of 105mph.

Of course, when the Saturn driver found himself going back uphill with no power steering or brakes, he would just have to engage the clutch to start the engine back up instantly. Since he doesn't need ignition to get the engine running, it wouldn't even matter if the stupid Saturn didn't give him any gas.

This story smells like the Audi, and the Renault story doesn't smell too good either.

aQazaQa

Simple cost analysis:

[Lethyos]

Destroying your car is preferrable to maming and/or killing others and yourself (let's not even talk about law suits). You hardly did the wrong thing.

Re:Can you explain more clearly what happens?

[the_mad_poster]

When you downshift from, say, 4th to 3rd in an AOD transmission, the lever may go into the 3rd slot but the system will not actually shift down until it's "safe" to do so. It's the same premise that the system uses to shift up. You can hold the car in 2nd gear and it won't go over, but it also won't shift up to 3rd immediately if you push the lever into third gear. In an AOD, you more or less have to look at your gear lever as a nice suggestion that the car USUALLY follows.

I don't really know how you could safely stop a modern AOD if you lose control of the throttle unless you've removed the rev limiter. The car will not shift down or into neutral if doing so would throw you over the rev limit and you can't gun the engine further to try and blow it either.

As a sidenote, you can get a shift kit that will let you shift up and down in an AOD at your command. If you had something like that and you were going that fast, you MIGHT be able to override the rev limiter simply by throwing the lever back into first gear as hard as you can. Rev limiters aren't perfect and you can rev the engine to explosion if you do something stupid enough.

Re:And he stopped just in time...

[arivanov]

1. I do not find it hard to believe. Vel Satis is fully electronic automatic transmission with keyless entry and ignition. You cannot switch to neutral if the computer is bust. You cannot turn off the engine either. And if it has already been allowed to accelerate to 120mph the handbrake (dunno if it even has one) and the breaks will not do shit.
2. It is what you get from integrating non-vital and vital circuits to save costs. Dunno if the Vel Satis uses similar electronics, but the recent Citroen and Peugeot (the other two french makes) run using a single integrated on-board computer that controls everything from wipers to engine. To add insult to injury it is a low end crap running Windows CE. It is quite noticeable - their speed displays are fully digital and it takes them 2+ seconds to update between reading (as of Citroen C2). Enough to lose your license in some of the UK speed camera happy areas. That is besides that it is an el-cheapo passive LCD which cannot be read if you have polaroid sunglasses or if the sun is behind you (Citroen C2 and C3 at least).
3. This case is an example why you should not buy an automatic and a keyless entry until proper cars are available. In fact I would rather have my speedo analogue as well (it takes less time for human brain to read an analogue dial compared to a digital number).

Re:Something similar happened to me

[SaDan]

Since the vehicle was carburated, and (I haven't owned one, so I can't say this for certian) probably doesn't have an RPM limiter like most fuel injected cars do, shifting to neutral could have been just as life threatening as not maintaining control of the vehicle.

A blown engine can send parts in all directions, including through the interior of the vehicle. FWD vehicles with transverse mounted V6/V8 engines means at least three pistons are pointed towards the firewall...

This happend to me!

[JBoelke]

This happen to my brother and I driving a manual tramission Saab 900 (this was 1986 or 87). When my brother depressed the clutch, the engine red lined and stalled at 95 mph. This was befor cell phones so we did not have the police clear the way. We coasted to the side of the road and determined that the mechanic did not properly reistall the cruise control after doing other mechinal work. (The crusie control was on top of the engine) After about 1/2 an hour the pressure in the engine adjusted it self and we were able to continue driving. This time without the cruise control.

similar issue in airplanes

[peter303]

In the last two decades airplane piloting has gradually replace most direct contact with controls by a mediating computer layer. Some pilots dont trust the computers or software completely. This is called the fly-by-wire debate. Some accidents are attributed to bad software, although the testing is quite rigorous.

Obligatory quote ...

[Knx]

"A car must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law."

You're completely off on Euro auto/manual stats

[blorg]

10X as many automatic transmissions are sold as manuals in the U.S., and the numbers are somewhere around 7X for Europe. With an automatic transmission, as you know, the torque converter is driven off the output shaft of the engine.

It is nothing like 7:1 automatic:manual in Europe; if you inverted that you'd be closer to the truth (I work for an Irish used car website and out of 16,500 cars currently on the site well under 10% are automatic.)

The Vel Satis is a relatively high end Renault so the chances of it being an auto are higher; still however out of the six Vel Satis models sold here new, four are manual...

1971 Datsun Pickup

[peacefinder]

Same thing happened to me once. But I wasn't in France at the time.

I was driving my dad's red 1971 Datsun pickup on my way to work. (My brother had rolled it a couple times, but it was a Datsun so of course it still ran as good as ever.) A light ahead changed to yellow, and, being about 20 years old at the time, I did what came naturally: I floored it.

Not that flooring a '71 Datsun 1600cc engine had much of an immediate effect. But I did start accellerating, and I made it through the light whilst it was still yellow. Sweeeet. I let off the gas.

The engine continued to rev up.

"Oh, shit," said I. I was up to about 50MPH (in a 45 zone) and accelerating. The next light was about 400 yards away and red, with cars backed up waiting in every lane going my way. It was familiar territory, so I knew the light wouldn't be green before I got there.

I started to panic. I dropped the clutch, and the engine started to wind up. I had no tachometer, but I knew that sucker was gonna tear itself apart if I let it go on like that. I shoved into high gear (4, no overdrive) and engaged the clutch again. Naturally this was a slightly wrenching experience; the RPMs dropped and the vehicle lurched towards the firey doom ahead. In full panic now, I dropped the clutch again with the same result as before. I re-engaged the clutch.

I thought "I am going to die in about ten seconds. Nine. Eight. Oh yeah, the switch."

I turned the engine off and pulled over. Heh. Silly me.

Turns out that the throttle pedal itself was jammed. There was a little mushroom-shaped backstop attached to the firewall, and when I had floored it I had shoved the perdal sideways a bit, and gotten it stuck behind the backstop.

The moral of the story? Panic is not helpful, even the simplest devices can fail, and every powered device needs a kill switch.

Car Computer Problems

[0peth]

That's the reason at least in the USA, cars with cruise control systems are required to have a master kill switch in addition to the normal methods of turning them off (some subset of the brake, clutch, and steering-wheel "cancel" button.)
I have no faith in the computers put in cars these days. Part of it is definitely a 1997 Accord which has a couple of problems with it. Similar to the guy in the post, cruise control will sometimes settle on a speed 5-15 mph higher than what it was set at (but is luckily responsive to turning it off.) Also, and possibly more annoying, is the door locks. The doors are supposed to lock when the car starts, and unlock when it stops, and they do, but they keep doing as such randomly. I'll be driving around, and the doors will randomly click locked a dozen or so times.
Can't wait for them to get such features as online, software/firmware updates--it'll be great to have virusses on my car.

BusinessWeek says French quality IS good.

[citiZen2010]

I was smugly chuckling to myself about this also, until I read this.

Re:Hey!

[fucksl4shd0t]

"traction control" is nebulous.

Generally when someone's talking about traction control using ABS, they're referring to a fancy system that's designed for high-speed maneuvarability, like in a slalom or something, and actually has *nothing* to do with the road surface.

of course, the GP isn't aware of that, poor guy.

Just being pedantic, because generally when people argue about what traction control does, they're all right, it's just that "traction control" is such a nebulous phrase as to be virtually meaningless.

Re:Emergency Brakes

[harborpirate]

They're called 'parking brakes' on the continent, because they tend to lock the back wheels solid if you pull them on in an emergency. Meaning we use them for parking rather than skating around in doughnuts on busy urban streets.


Clearly then, on the "continent", you are not using your e-brake to its full potential.

Remember the Audi 5000's "Unintended acceleration"

[DaveJay]

The Audi 5000, and many other cars over the years, have had reported cases of "unintended acceleration", often resulting in deaths. In most (if not all) cases, it turns out to be driver error, wherein the driver BELIEVES they're stomping on the brakes, but instead they're pressing the gas. The truth is, in all modern automobiles, the brakes can bring the car to a halt even with the accelerator floored.

Historically, this usually occurs when something else malfunctions and causes the driver to get distracted. In the case of the Audi 5000, it was an idle control that went awry, and when people shifted into drive with their foot off the brake, the higher idle would make the car lurch forward. They'd slam on the brakes, but accidentally hit the gas, and keep their foot to the floor until they hit something. They found this out by inviting a number of people who experienced this "unintended acceleration" to a parking lot, and had them drive engineers around for two days in front of cameras while the engineers played with the computer to force errors.

On the second day of this testing, a woman putting the car into reverse went tearing across the parking lot at high speed until the engineer reached over and shut the car off. She jumped out of the car, and on camera, shouted something like "It happened! There's your proof! The car is at fault!" -- but the cameras inside the car showed she had been hitting the gas, the cameras outside showed no brake lights, and the engineer riding with her bore witness as well.

As a result of this study, and all of the fallout surrounding the related lawsuits, the US requires an automatic transmission interlock on all cars sold here. You MUST have your foot on the brake to shift into gear.

- - -

Now, to the case at hand. I am fairly certain that this was the course of events:

1. The driver recently purchased the car, or it was a rental, so he was relatively unfamiliar with it (the Audi 5000 incident found that the vast majority of people having these incidents were drivers for whom the Audi was not the primary vehicle, or whom had just purchased it);

2. The driver was cruising along on cruise control, and pressed the gas without manually disengaging the control.

3. When the driver lifted off the gas and pulled back in, the car either didn't slow down as quickly as he thought it should (remember, we're assuming he was unfamiliar with the car), he accidentally hit the button to reset the cruise control to the newer, higher speed, or there was a genuine malfunction that reset the cruise to the newer, higher speed.

4. In the next few seconds that followed, he panicked and went for the brake -- but instead he hit the gas. Having done this, and firmly believing that he was hitting the brake to no effect, he continued to floor the gas. The car continued to accelerate.

5. Between trying to shut the car off, calling the police and swerving around traffic, it never occurred to him to look down and see if he was actually hitting the brake. No shame there; none of us would have, either.

6. As he approached the tollbooth, he made another attempt at the brakes (probably using both feet this time) and brought the car to a stop.

So, is the cruise control at fault? Possibly, but not definitely. Either way, similar past incidents suggest that it was a relatively minor issue until he hit the gas by mistake.

For what it's worth, with no witnesses in the car and no instruments monitoring, we'll never know for sure. Also, unless he realized his mistake just before stopping the car, he may well spend the rest of his life believing it's the car's fault -- and if he DID realize his mistake, there's no way he's ever going to admit it.

I'd just like to add...

[bmajik]

I drive, amonst other things, a 1988 BMW M5.

This car has mechanical power steering and mechanical power brake assist. however, it is incorrect to say that power brakes are just a vacuum booster. Many are, but many are not, especially mid 80s german cars that didn't really draw enough vacuum for a vacuum based brake assist. (Some BMW, Audi, and VW models feature non vacuum assist)

Those vehicles have a hydraulic brake booster which is run as a separate output channel from the power steering pump. The power steering pump cant react fast enough for panic threshhold braking, so such cars have a brake pressure accumulator or "brake bomb" which stores pressurized power steering fluid. This pressurized fluid is what provides brake force assistance. Note that the power steering fluid and brake fluid are separate and do not mix; it's just that the brake power regulator uses stored pressure from the PS system to pressurize the brake system.

I recently replaced the brake pressure accumulator on my BMW.

Now, ancient brake technology dissertation aside - i have _very_ relevant experience regarding loss of steering and braking power.

I was on Brainerd International Raceway in Minnesota with my M5. This racetrack has a 1 mile long front straight, and turn 1 is banked. I was entering turn 1 at about 125mph (its a 4 door sedan, give me some slack) and midway through the turn i felt my steering get a bit "funny". I immediately recognized the loss of power steering. KNowing what i know about the car, i checked the brake pedal and found i had no power braking either.

Turn 2 can also be taken in excess of 100mph in my vehicle, but turn 3 is a 110 deegree turn that can't really be navigated above 50mph in a sedan on street tires. So I had no power steering and no power brakes, and i had to slow down 4000 lbs of vehicle, driver, and passenger from in excess of 100mph to about 40 mph.

This was no problem, honestly. You can do the entire back section of BIR without braking once you get past turn 3 if you're running a cool down lap. I really stood on the mechanical unassisted brakes to get speed down by turn 3, and then i was able to drive the car back into the pits.

The problem? The power steering pump is belt driven, and since the power steering pump also pressurizes the power brake system as described above, when the belt snapped, i lost power steering and power braking. My brake presure accumulator, which normally stores enough pressurized fuild to perform 3-4 full brake applications even in the total loss of engine power and brake assist, was faulty (thats why i replaced it a few weeks later :) so thats why i had no power braking as soon as the belt went.

So, the moral of the story is
1) knowing how your car works is helpful. I got a ride over to NAPA, bought a new belt, and was back on the track for the next session. I remained calm even though i had the most difficult braking maneuver on the track coming up in less than 15 seconds.

2) The key to all driving situations is operator skillset and awareness.

Here's another short story:
Once in my 1980 BMW 528i i was cruising along the highway, with cruise control enabled. This was an aftermarket cruise control system, as it did not come on this specific vehicle from the factory. I opted to take an off ramp (which went up hill, as they often do in the midwest) and when i dipped the clutch the engine started bouncing off the rev limiter. Manually cancelling the cruise control had no effect. This took me quite by surprise so i killed the engine and slowed to a stop on manual brakes.

The cruise control cable had stuck. OPening the hood, wiggling the cable returned the throttle to the closed position.

Note that at BMW Club track events, a specific part of the technical inspection is the condition and function of the throttle return spring. Driving at speed requires nuance in the use of the throttle, a stock throttle can be a real problem.

It Sounds to me ...

[Muad'Dave]

... like cars without traditional ignition keys should have a kill switch wired to the emergency brake pedal. Hit the emergency brakes, power is cut to the computer.

Re:And he stopped just in time...

[bobbozzo]

Any cars' brakes can stop the car at any speed, even with full throttle.

This is ridiculous.
I'm not saying it doesn't happen (because the driver is too scared to push the brakes hard enough), but it shouldn't happen and is easily avoidable.

Some car TV show tested Audis when they were having the 'sudden acceleration' problem. Stopping distance only increased by a small percent with the throttle wide open.

every system needs a "f (s) ck this!" button

[swschrad]

every one. a button that stops the current operations and goes back to stasis. in the case of a car, no forward energy would seem to be the logical application. in the case of OS, the only one I've ever seen that would almost always stop a current operation (like a SQL search on the null set) was NeXTStep, ctrl-period IIRC.

have you written one in lately?

Need to slow down?

[freeze128]

Just turn on the Air Conditioning. That always works for me.

Get back to basics.

[stimpleton]

Granted, this is all very high tech but stuck throttles have occurred for decades with just as dramatic consequences.
Its called a frayed throttle cable. Interestingly, "driver intervention" is surprisingly low, with drivers stopping only when they run into something.

Other causes that I have seen(I was a mechanic for 15 years before I got involved with the computer side of things:

- "Damper pots" on carburetors work fine controlling the secondry throttle plate, till a rubber o-ring perishes within the carb, and engine vacuum sucks the rubber diaphragm in the pot fully home and the throttle opens fully.
- Piston type accuators that wear, and the piston finally tilts and sticks...at the last speed you were going.
- In some EFI cars, when a vacuum seal of gives way, the lean mixture can be aggresively compensated by the EFI unit, resulting in at least partial throttle.

Some (but a fraction) of vehicles formally identified w/ throttle probs that have resulted in similar results as the article:
- 2001 Ford escape - Water enter servo, throttle sticks.
- Nearly all european cars to 1982 - Poor corrsion ressistance, cable sticks against the outer cable.
-1990 Ranger - Throttle cam wears and sticks against air intake tube, where there was only 1 mm clearance at new.
- Oldsmobile Toronado/Trofero - worn nylon bush. Throttle sticks wide open.
- 1996 Honda Accord/Accura - Carpet by throttle pedal snags pedal, preventing its return.

brakes are always stronger than the engine

[SuperBanana]

the driver has tried to use the brakes, but he says they quickly heated up and became ineffective.

In almost every car ever produced, the brakes are far more "powerful" than the engine. This is complete bullshit, unless the car was poorly maintained or had a serious defect. You can't ride them- you really have to push hard and bring the vehicle to a stop quickly, or yes, you will overheat the brakes- but even if you do that, you don't have to wait long for them to cool down. You CAN'T use your handbrake- it's a PARKING brake, not an "emergency" brake, and yeah, they tend to not be properly adjusted so they won't do a very good job of stopping the car; since little weight is on them, manufacturers don't make the rear brakes very big. Use the BRAKE pedal, people.

Elizabeth Jordan, a NY EMT who called 911 claiming her car was out of control, became completely hysterical- a cop finally stopped the vehicle by pulling in front of her and using the cruiser's brakes(and rear bumper) to stop.

Funny thing, but they found absafuckingloutly nothing wrong with the car she was driving. The woman was simply a hysterical bitch who wanted attention. Suddenly after being brought to a stop by the cruiser, she could turn off the ignition. Why the fuck didn't she do that in the first place?

99% of the stories about cars going "out of control" are bullshit. It's almost always driver error- or a complete fabrication by the driver to get out of trouble (or for attention).

Renault's put the handbrake on...

[steve_l]

I had a renault megane for rental in the Alps in may.

Their fancy rfid tag ignition key is cute; just plug it in and hit the go button. There is no stop button; you just come to a halt then pull the card.

The moment you pull the card it actually puts the handbrake on. The handbrake comes off when you restart the car, put it in gear and rev the engine.

I didnt have a 125mph chase down the autoroute, but we did have a scary time doing a 3 point turn on an alpine pass in the snow. The road was closed and we had to turn round. But you cannot spin up the engine and clutch then gently come off the handbrake, as you normally do on hill turns. As soon as you hit the accelerator your brakes would come off. So the only safe way to hill starts is to make 100% sure you are in the right gear (ie forwards and not backwards), then hit the accelerator hard. Get it wrong and you drive off the mountain at speed.

I think the Renault line have added a bit too much automation these days. I note the German toys havent gone that far yet -not even Mercedes- and I think they knew what they were doing.

Re:And he stopped just in time...

[bobbozzo]

OK, I asked Google to find me articles on the Audi problem.

The first article is on point... it says average cars' brakes have 3-5 times more horsepower than their engines.

Here is an article which specifically talks about the Audi problems...

Most car experts and magazines such as Car and Driver supported Audi's position, knowing full well that working brakes can always overpower the engine, even at full throttle. But major media outlets chose to ignore basic facts and instead gave front-page treatment to theories about sunspots causing cars to run wild.

Kill switch

[Krellan]

Lessons learned:

1) Any vehicle with an ignition system that can't be turned off the same way it was turned on -- from Renault's new smartcard ignition system, to an old-style lawnmower with a pull cord -- needs a KILL SWITCH! Pressing the kill switch shuts off the flow of gas/spark/whatever to the engine, causing it to stall, and would not have any other side effects such as re-engaging the steering column lock.

2) Pedals usually have different shapes: a horizontal rectangle for the brake (or clutch), and a vertical rectangle for the throttle. These are shaped differently on purpose: when strongly pushed, you should feel the difference in your feet as your shoes bend around the pedals differently! Often, the pedals will even be at different heights: notice the gas pedal is lower than the brake, on most cars.

3) Say what you will about our overzealous product safety/testing/defect laws, but there's a reason Renault cars aren't sold anymore in the US :)

Re:Can you explain more clearly what happens?

[the real darkskye]

Actually it is quite simple to shift in a manual (or stick shift for our pond-side readers) without a clutch, it just involves matching the engine RPMs with the gear+wheel speed for a smooth change.

The things you learn fast when your clutch cable snaps while driving.

Re:I, for one, call Shenanigans on this whole thre

[ronaldb64]

and it's evident in collission tests and traffic accident stats that they deserve a reputation for safety.

That may be good news to Renault drivers: Hey if you ever get stuck doing 120MPH, rest assured, we got an excellent rep in collision tests....

Re:Can you explain more clearly what happens?

[the_mad_poster]

You can't safely pull the hand brake at 120 mph. Brakes have metal wiring in them that can snag the tires if it's bared, and pulling the hand brake at that speed would probably rip away the pad pretty quick. Not only that, but there's no way the brake could've stopped the car before it burned up unless it caused the cruise control to finally stop as well. If you don't believe me, you've gotten a half mile up the road and suddenly realize you left the emergency brake on. It's only meant to hold the car in place on an incline and to add some extra power to your real brakes, it's not meant to actually stop the car on its own.

Re:Can you explain more clearly what happens?

[Drawkcab]

He started out passing someone at ~90mph, so it was pretty much too late for that before he even lost control. Besides, haven't you ever found out that you were driving around with the emergency brake on? I'd never risk my car by experimenting with it, but I don't have much faith in it in an actual emergency. Of course this kind of thing will never happen to those of us with manual transmissions, or even a typical automatic.

Re:Can you explain more clearly what happens?

[BasilBrush]

What kind of wierd hand brake are you describing? How the hell can the brake cable ever come in contact with the tire?

In all the cars I've ever owned/seen, the hand brake cable is connected to the exact same rear brake pads as the foot brake is connected to. If the pads wear out, the solid metal behind the pads comes in contact with the drum/disk and they overheat. But there's no wire in contact with tire outcome.

Ironic...

[WebCowboy]

...because if your Nissan is less than five years old, then it was engineered by the same team as the Renault that is the subject of the article. This is because Renault and Nissan practically merged some time ago. Renault is the single biggest shareholder in Nissan (about 40% owned), and Nissan owns 15 or 20% of Renault. from a corporate structure standpoint, their arrangement is almost identical to the Renault/American Motors alliance from 1978 to 1987 (American Motors Jeep division had to divest AM General--makers of the Humvee--because US regulations did not allow the vehicles to be supplied by a foreign company. Odd how "American" motors was considered a FOREIGN company by the federal gov't in the last decade of its existence).

If it weren't for Renault management Nissan would not be around today as they were nearly bankrupt when they formed their alliance. Whatever the rep for lack of quality Renault had, they learned from experience and became quite a well run company. And I wouldn't discount the possibility that Renault parts are being used more and more in Nissans (and vice versa of course...the two brands are even starting to visually resemble each other).

Back in the AMC/Renault days the same thing happened--a Renault diesel engine, instrument cluster and bucket seats turned up in a handful of Jeep models sold in North America. The AMC Alliance/Encore was mechanically identical to the Renault 9/11, except that AMC supplied different accessories (bumbers, grille, headlamps, wheels, radio...). AMC was also planning to bring the Espace to the US and Canada to compete with the Dodge Caravan (possibly to be assembled alongside the "AMC/Renault Premier" in Brampton, Ontario). Of course, that plan was quashed when Chrysler took over, but the Canada-built R25 was sold as Eagle Premier and Dodge Monaco.

The same thing is happening to Nissan, except Renault seems to have learned from its mistakes. This time it seems they are not only trimming the fat and get in effective management like they tried with AMC, they figured out that ultimately you cant stay in business seling junk. I KNOW some Renault engineering/styling is finding its way into Nissans, and they definitely source most if not all of their parts through common suppliers. Thankfully, for the most part Renault is learning from Nissan about quality control.

Re:Can you explain more clearly what happens?

[dnoyeb]

As an automotive engineer I can say it sounds like a hoax to me as well.

1. Brakes are designed to be stronger than the engine transmission combination. But if misapplied can heat up and become not totally effective, but still.

2. I remember Chrysler had similar problem, but it was meerly lunging forward, no consistent acceleration. Note, stepping on the brake deactivates the cruise control.

3. parking brake will not be more effective than main brake, but its not hydraulic so its redundant (but not additive). But it definitely will not stop the car, especially a front wheel drive. Its a "parking" brake after all...

As for the ignition, even passive "authorization" systems like cards and RFID and FOBs typically have manual ignition control. So I don't believe it for one second.

Of course turning off ignition switch causes steering wheel lock, so you better be damn careful to turn to accessory.

Most likely cruise got stuck on acceleration, and he let it go to see what would happen.