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Drivers Blamed For Out of Control Toyotas - Again
PolygamousRanchKid writes "An intensive 10 month investigation into possible causes of unintended acceleration in Toyota cars found no fault with the automaker's electronic throttle control systems, the Department of Transportation announced Tuesday."
Didn't the NHTSA say essentially the same thing last July?
Drivers Blamed For Out of Control Toyotas - Again
Since none of you actually RTFA's, I thought I'd do my good deed for the day and point out that they mean the people behind the wheel are the problem, not the gas pedal drivers.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
So far there are three known causes of unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles: improperly installed floor mats, sticky pedals, and driver error.
That's the second paragraph of TFA. What, submitters don't RTFA anymore?
Same result starting with Audi 25 years ago and many more since then.
Problem Exists Between Steering Wheel And Chair
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
We are moving forward - even when you don't want to!
If it was American drivers faults, why then did we not see a rash of similar accidents with other manufacturers vehicles?
The cars are not perfect, but they are smarter than the drivers that own them.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
...we should be expecting new drivers on patch Tuesday.
Have gnu, will travel.
Who ya gonna believe, them or Woz?
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503983_162-6169804-503983.html
The incompetent are unaware of their level of incompetence and therefore must blame external elements. It called the Dunning Kruger effect.
The Audi 5000 had similar issues:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audi_5000#Reported_sudden_unintended_acceleration
Installing that proprietary crap from the vendor. ... wait, not that kind of driver? Oh.
If it was American drivers faults, why then did we not read about a rash of similar accidents with other manufacturers vehicles?
Fixed that for you.
We didn't read about this happening with other vehicles because other drivers couldn't get out of trouble by claiming it was the "car that did it" the way Toyota drivers could at the time.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Simple answer even highway patrol fucks up. He could have just shifted to neutral.
dunno if the cars relly did speed out of controle or not. but what i am saying even if it happon the braking force would be grater then the stuck acclerator could provide. that means if they hit there brakes the car would stop. you can also cut the engion. so the drivers blame there lack of skill or driving errors on someone else. seems to be the thing to do these days kill someone blame video games and so on. some chick tried this when she nailed my truck making the same clames. after the pulled the computer from her car they found out the brake where not even pressed. meaning the chick was just a bad driver.
Otherwise you can't have lawsuits and everyone receive lottery-like settlements!
Engineering and science must take a back seat on this one, driver error isn't an interesting enough answer.
Need I say more.
Woz was talking about a different problem, something that affected the cruise control's control loop behavior at wide-open throttle. IMHO he was experiencing a corner case that had nothing to do with the sensationalized incidents.
The fact that so many of the drivers who experienced this particular "malfunction" were over age 60 tells you all you need to know.
Seriously, you can mitigate this problem.
I thought I'd read that there were literally zero reports of this issue outside of the United States.
If your car suddenly accelerates and you cannot shift into neutral or press the brakes to stop it, you are not qualified to operate a motor vehicle.
Just because they "found no problem" (publicly) with the cars, doesn't mean that there isn't one. I've experienced one of these things accelerating personally (multiple times, actually) and I can tell you that there IS something wrong with the cars. I didn't crash into anything, so I don't really have any reason to lie, Don't believe these "findings".
DNA -- National Dyslexic Association
Their hardware is good, but their drivers suck.
This space available.
the Mythbusters need to test Toyota's!
The sudden acceleration is very much like how the cruise control acts when it is engaged. Toyota and the U.S. Government overlooked the problem because they didn't see it the right way. Pfft! rocket scientists; what-ever!
Make it the law and penalize drivers who know what they are doing? I use the 'heal and toe' method to maintain slightly better stability whilst driving on twisty roads. But then again, I drive rally cars for fun. I've also made the leap and disconnected the neutral start switch on all my manual transmission cars. Sometimes, just sometimes you really do want the car in gear while cranking it over.
Here is an idea: why not use a cable between the pedal and the throttle body? Wow, now we are cooking with gas.
Why is it that most of the people that I encounter seem to have been shat from the Sphincter of Mediocrity?
I am very disappointed with these findings...
Back when they thought the car could just flip out and accelerate wildly, a Prius was a man's car! Oh, "I need some groceries, I guess I'll drive to the store in my ticking time bomb death machine!" You just can't get much manlier than that!
Now it's back to being a wussy hippiemobile.
Sigh.
As I had this happen myself. I do not buy the whole "human error".
And there might be a very very easy way to prove or disprove that statement. If it is human error, than the same incident should occur throughout all brands with approx. the same level of occurrence.
If it is happening significantly higher with Toyotas. Then there is clearly a non-human error issue. Simple logic here. But the fact that I had this occur to me once with my Toyota leaves me to suspect Toyota. Thankfully, I did not get into an accident. And within 2-3 seconds I got it to stop. (I do wonder if it might be tied to the cruise control system.)
Cables also get stuck. Used to happen all the time in my old 87 corolla. Was never a real problem I just popped the gas to unstick it, and if I had to I could have held in the clutch or shifted to neutral.
Having the vehicle engine drop to idle if you touch the brake should suffice
Since the problem in many cases is people stomping on the gas and not the brake, that won't actually stop the problem.
Reengineering the human brain so people never make erroneous reactions in stressful situations would address the problem, but probably will not be practical for quite some time.
The the initial instance found no cause; HOWEVER the 'blackbox'* had been disconnected from power before inspection. Meaning they had no information no the worst cases,AND they did push out a firmware update.
*I know, they are more of a debugging tool then an actual blackbox, like those found in aircraft.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Since one of the people behind the wheel was Steve Wozniak (previous slashdot story hyperlinked here [slashdot.org]), and he said he'd actually been able to replicate unchecked acceleration by the cruise-control system, I'm not trusting Toyota.
The results announced by the Department of Transportation were of the study conducted by the NHTSA (which, remember, fined Toyota for not responding promptly enough to the floor mat and pedal design issues) with the assistance of NASA, not by Toyota. So, whether you trust Toyota would seem to be irrelevant.
Nor would I trust the government. They're not likely to be bringing A+ talent to the party.
Trusting the government is, OTOH, at least relevant to the issue, since this was a government study. However, your stated basis for dismissing the government study (which amounts to "Steve Wozniak said something different, and the people working for the government are stupid") is pretty vacuous.
What they also confirmed was that mechanical issues were a factor.
The mechanical issues (pedal design and floor mats) that were confirmed were not in dispute -- Toyota already issued recalls over them. The controversial issue was whether some other design issue -- the most commonly suggested was a problem in the electronic throttle control -- that had not been the subject of recall and correction was also at fault, posing continuing risk, or whether the incidents not related to the acknowledged mechanical issues were due to driver error.
Just because a lot of Toyotas are out of control doesn't mean there's a problem with Toyotas. Clearly, out of control drivers prefer to buy Toyota.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I listened to some of today's briefing, recorded it to watch later. They mentioned about unintended accelerations caused by floor mats. Of course drivers should pay attention to such details, many do not. Proper design for floor mat is one that does not have such a failure mode. I can see more driver induced accidents in near future. For example, some new cars have terrible visibility such as new Acuras. I drove one a couple months ago, man was it scary when doing lane changes, so many blind spots with narrow side windows and a rear view mirror feels like tunnel vision. Unlike a 1996 Acura 3.2TL has great visibility, where did the engineers go wrong? I can see more accidents happening and all caused by the driver. But if vehicle designed for good visibility, driver wouldn't have crashed in the first place!
mfwright@batnet.com
I am going to drill myself on that, thanks.
Remember: shift into neutral.
Remember: shift into neutral.
Remember: shift into neutral.
Remember to shift into neutral when I unexpectedly accelerate over a cliff. Thanks!
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
So then a disproportionately high number of people who can't tell the difference between the brake and accelerator just happen to drive Toyotas or Toyota-built cars? Sorry, not buying it. There is a pretty serious design flaw at work here, and this report doesn't really exonerate Toyota.
It's an easy recommendation to make when you're not experiencing a panic inducing uncontrolled and unexpected acceleration.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Didn't Woz's example basically boil down to "hit the 'set' button on the cruise control at 85mph, cancel it, slow down to 35mph, then hit 'resume' and observe 'woah scary acceleration!!!'"? That trick works on every cruise control unit I've used, although likewise, even the 22-year-old cruise control on my Toyota will deactivate if you touch the brake or clutch.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
Different problem. Read the Woz's description. His complaint is only about the cruise control.
It's not necessarily a different problem. Scenario:
- Driver bumps the cruise control or the wiring/control is worn or otherwise has a momentary contact.
- Car goes into uncontrolled acceleration.
- Hitting brake clears the problem.
- Driver has no clue the cruise control was involved.
Another poster reported uncontrolled acceleration when taking foot off brake. The brake switch is also an input to the cruise control algorithm. One way for software to cause THAT to trigger the issue is if a bug in the contact debounce routines not only generates a hold-down-resume/accel output for a tap on the regular control but also for a bounce-on-release in the brake signal.
Things to look for: Race conditions, bugs in input signal conditioning routines, an interrupt not properly saving&restoring a register, wild store smashing a state, insufficient stack allocation to a task to prevent interrupt state stacking to clobber another task's stack, etc.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The article describes the brake override system as "immediately cutting engine power if the brakes are applied". I certainly hope they are wrong.
There are several situations where brake and throttle need to be applied at the same time. The one I have to do irregularly is to dry out the brake system after traveling through water - Drive slowly while applying brake force until the disks dry out. My Astra has fly-by-wire throttle, and it cuts accelerator input after a few seconds of brake application. This does not cause any problems.
The other one I can think of ,namely, left-foot braking, really shouldn't be necessary on the road.
Lastly, i vastly prefer fly-by-wire to an old style throttle cable. They regularly stick when seals crack, dust gets in and lubricants dry. Fly-by-wire is much more reliable, and far more flexable.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
Actually, I've had the cables break in my old Volkswagons. Had to drive home with the idle adjust screw cranked *way* in. It was hell at stop signs.
Why is it that most of the people that I encounter seem to have been shat from the Sphincter of Mediocrity?
A far simpler thing to do that will leave the power steering working is to shift into neutral.
Shift? Neutral? I thought we were talking about a Prius.
The Prius has no shift, no clutch, no neutral. It has a planetary gear system with:
- The engine and one electric motor-generator (MG1) on one shaft,
- another motor-generator (MG2, or "MGS" for "speed") on another, and
- the drive shaft to the wheels on the third.
Transmission "shifting" is done by electronically controlling the relative speeds and torque directions of MG1 and MG2, transferring power from one to the other and/or between them and the batteries.
If the computer commands it to drive the car forward you have no way to intervene.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Two. They use Two.
... or the driver is too stupid to do anything while the car runs away?
If the car suddenly accelerates by itself it takes a short time to react and hit the brake. Then it takes time for the brakes to take effect (especially if the drive train didn't stop and is fighting the brakes). One can get into a LOT of trouble in that interval.
The unexpectedness of the car's behavior would also surprise the driver and might result in a delay of the reaction.
Finally, if the car is in traffic and hasn't ALREADY had an accident, trying to control the speed with brakes alone can cause it to slow or stop suddenly and get into trouble at the rear end.
So I wouldn't assume a driver who had an impact due to such an event to have been "too stupid" to control the car that had turned on him.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Here is an idea: why not use a cable between the pedal and the throttle body?
Given that the Prius "transmission" is a planetary gear set with the drive shaft torque controlled by a computer-mediated balancing act among the throttle, two electric motors, and a battery pack, that pedal would have to control four parameters and accept additional input from things including your current speed and forward/reverse/neutral setting.
I'd LOVE to see the mechanical linkage that correctly performed the computation. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Really? I wish the cruise control on my Acura was that bad ass. I can't even get it to engage above like 60mph or something like that. It is practically useless where I live.
This sort of thing has me raising eyebrows. Toyota was crucified in the court of public opinion and hauled up before a congressional inquisition (NO ONE EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!!!) with few real facts to back it up. IMHO, those congressmen who went on a witch hunt owe Toyota an apology. Sure, companies need to admit and rectify problems but government and the media regularly get away with firebombing companies and regular people and they get away with it.
After getting over the bridge, my brother found the cruise control vacuum actuator, (with the disconnected electrical harness,) was pulling the throttle open. He disconnected the linkage, and the problem never happened again.
You may have the bingo!
That sounds like a mechanical problem in an electronically controlled vacuum valve in the cruise control actuator.
(I had something similar with the computer/valve/vacuum-diaphragm actuator on the waste valve of an Eagle Talon's turbo.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I don't know if you have poked around inside the software found on a modern car ECU lately, but there is quite a bit of code in there. Also we now have engine computers (ECU), brake computers (ABS), transmission computers, etc., plus the actual black box.
The short version is that there are computers with the power to overrule your foot and decide your brakes don't need to be engaged at this particular millisecond. Modern ABS systems do have the ability to render your brakes completely ineffective when that computer decides it's the correct choice. It usually only allows (a) specific brake caliper(s) (one per wheel) to be inactive for a few milliseconds at a time. Of course in a failure mode, the brakes revert to manual control and your foot again makes the rules. But usually if the engine is running, the computer is in charge.
The same is true for many modern cars and the engine throttle. It used to be just the cruise control that was electronically driven; now most new cars are "drive by wire". A signal is picked up from the throttle pedal and then fed to the engine computer, which then decides just how much air and fuel should be given to the engine to determine the requested power & acceleration. Most of these computers have a whole bunch of code between the signal received from the throttle pedal, and the message sent out to the controls managing fuel injectors, engine spark and air supply. The computer is actually deciding what happens, the driver is just asking the ECU to do something for them.
It's all in the factory service manuals & electrical circuit diagrams; but definitely not spelled out out this neatly. You would also need to connect a few more dots using diagrams for the hydraulic brake system and possibly other sub-system diagrams.
Unfortunately not all of the code used in these computers is defect free. It's pretty good, but it's not perfect. And even perfect code can become imperfect if there is a flaw in an interpreter, pre-compiler or compiler, or the copy process, or a defect in the physical media. An electrical glitch in the RAM or CPU at run time also has the potential to produce unpredictable results. As would interference or an error with any of the messaging systems passing instructions between the various computers and the control modules. Good thing all of those systems are 100% fail-proof, right? Right...
I do believe most of the problems are human error. But I also believe that some core percentage of the problems are not human error.
The relationship between media attention and increased reports of the problem is likely a result of people hoping to bring more attention to a problem they have experienced in the past. Although I'm sure some opportunists just use it as an excuse. It would be interesting to see if most of the additional cases reported occurred before the relavent media incident. It might also be interesting to see how many non-injury, non-accident (or damage) reports there are as well. Essentially people who have no potential gain from reporting the problem.
Oh, and I have poked around inside my current car's ECU. I've even made some changes.
The accelerator pedal uses two hall-effect sensors.
However the real issue is that in every single case, the throttle is wide-open, but no braking is recorded. Which means either you have a fault which disables logging of braking action and somehow wipes out a direct mechanical system at the same time it accelerates out of control, or, the driver stomps on the wrong pedal, panics, and keeps pressing it.
well i was speaking in cars in genrel the stuck gas peddle story has been going on far longer then toyota. brakes still work cutting the engion still works.
If the computer commands it to drive the car forward you have no way to intervene. sorry no you still do its called the brakes and or the off buttion.
oh and i almost forgot those cars have a ebrake on them as well.
No neutral?
I usually hate saying this, but why isn't that illegal?
Cables also get stuck. Used to happen all the time in my old 87 corolla. Was never a real problem I just popped the gas to unstick it, and if I had to I could have held in the clutch or shifted to neutral.
You see! Toyota has had these problems for over 20 years, they just cant cover it up any more.
Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all
Anyone with engineering and manufacturing experience, particularly in an industry where your mistakes can kill people, would say that calling the cause "driver error" is a red herring, totally irrelevant. If they found, after controlling for age and demographic and whatnot, that Toyotas were causing deaths significantly more often than other cars (this is the case, right?), it doesn't matter what the cause is - it's a design fault. Period.
I'd've deleted that abortion of logic, sound thinking, and English composition too.
hybrid or electric motors do not use the same style of transmission as a gas only car. in face a full eltric uses no transmission they are acully bad for fule economy. but if i recall correctly applying the brake on these cars relese the clutch from the motor same thing as nutrule.
I read this story earlier on PCWorld. The thing about the investigation that jolts me the most is the implicit trust given to the NASA engineers as if they are the 'experts' on source code. I have respect for them, but who decided that they are the ultimate authority? Also, the claim that they reviewed 280,000 lines of source code is a little bit ridiculous as well. Ask anyone who has done any enterprise coding on big and complex projects and they will scoff at this. There is no way to 'review' that much code and account for every possible circumstance.
I have a feeling that this is just PR material sponsored jointly by Toyota and the US government to spur consumer spending and sweep shit under the rug.
Should they open source the ECU? Just saying...
That's nothing. Fun fact on my 92 Sunbird: If I move the gearshift to neutral while under cruise control, the engine will explode, or at least revved insanely until I panicked and turn it off, as the CC attempts to accelerate a car that cannot, in fact, be accelerated. (I have a floor gearshift, I discovered that by accident one day when I knocked myself out of gear.)
It really seems like auto engineers don't test edge cases, especially with electronic systems.
It's not helped by damn stupid cruise control systems that attempt to use four buttons for something that should take more.
At this point, cruise controls should have a on/off switch, with temporary resume position. One switch, three positions, with 'start' being temporary and sliding back to 'on' when released. Like a car ignition itself has on/off, and a 'start'.
And they should additionally have a use-current-speed/faster/slower control to set the speed, which should preferably actually be displayed somewhere. Either three buttons, or a knob for faster and slower, and push to set to current.
Any idiot could understand those two groups of controls.
Instead, they try to insane crowd that into four buttons. Is this 'resume', or 'faster'? Is this 'slower', or 'set'? Who knows, it depends on when you use it! Why would we need clear controls to manage the damn speed of the car?
Climate controls have the same problem. The only control that makes sense there is 'fan', all the rest is nonsense. Why are there three AC options with different names, why are there 'heat' options that can cool the car? Why is there a slider with eight positions on it?
Most importantly, why the fuck is it labeled 'max AC' so people use it when they get in the hot car, when in actuality it's to recirculate and they should use it all the time except when the inside of the car is hotter than the outside?
Look, there's a fucking input, output, and what you do to the air. Give me a button to select inside input (as opposed to the outside default), give me a damn slider that is shades from heat (which is really engine air) to nothing (Which is just recirculate) to cold (which flips on the compressor), and give me three output buttons for top, front, and floor, which I can push in any combination....and don't let me select the floor as the input and the output at the same time, so if I pick one pop up the other button. It's not damn rocket science, people's head's won't explode if you present the actual thing that is actually happening.
Oh, and obviously retain the 'fan speed' setting. I guess I should be lucky we actually still have that, and they haven't decided to somehow merge that into the different settings.
I swear to God, auto engineers...I would say they think we're idiots, but what they really think is that they, under no circumstances, should expose us to what is actually happening, so engineer giant systems we have to figure out to hide actually pretty simply systems that are identical among all cars and we'd easily understand if presented to us.
We should thank whatever deity we believe in that the damn steering wheel is mandated by law, because otherwise we'd have some cars with two levels on each side that we held one in each hand and had to push up and down like oars to steer...which would be connected to the exact same steering column that worked exactly the same way.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
What I would make a law is putting a switch exactly the same size and shape as the ignition key on the steering wheel, that actually does cut power to the engine.
It's absurd they can sell a car without some mechanical and obvious way to cut off the engine.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Or they're just the ones who don't know how to stop it.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
The Prius has no shift, no clutch, no neutral. It has a planetary gear system with:
And nevertheless simple Google image search shows that there indeed is a control that has R, N, D and B written on it.
If you are claiming that they don't work because they too are controlled electronically that's completely different thing. And I bet this was heavily under scrutiny in the investigations.
If the computer commands it to drive the car forward you have no way to intervene.
That's a bold assertion. And that's a rather big if when the brake command overrides the commands from the gas pedal. I wouldn't be surprised if at least some of the crashes were caused by the floor mat causing the gas pedal to get stuck and the driver getting scared (especially after reading about cars getting out of control). That's still a design issue, but one that can happen in any car. Happened to me once in a 'normal' car (no accident though).
It is what it is.
Look, there's a fucking input, output, and what you do to the air. Give me a button to select inside input (as opposed to the outside default), give me a damn slider that is shades from heat (which is really engine air) to nothing (Which is just recirculate) to cold (which flips on the compressor),
Leave the A/C alone. I *WANT* to control when the compressor comes on. A/C allows you to defog a windshield with the heat on or off.
Edge cases be damned. You kicked the car out of gear, intentionally or otherwise, it's up to you to get it back INTO gear, or shut the engine down, or sit there looking foolish after the engine comes apart spectacularly. As for the recent spectacular Toyota problems? I'd have to experience an instance to believe all the hype. I remember the MORON cop who claimed that his car was accelerating uncontrollably. What did he do? He called the police department, and asked that the intersection be cleared. They played his phone call several times. What did the cop NOT do? He didn't shift into neutral. He didn't turn the key off. He didn't downshift, which would have made the top speed of the vehicle much lower. He didn't intentionally drive into something with give to it. He did not try driving into something less lethal than oncoming traffic, such as a pond, a field, a ditch, or even some undergrowth among some trees. Back when the earth was much younger, and we had to watch for dinosaurs crossing the road, we had to learn DEFENSIVE DRIVING. Apparently, no one teaches real defensive driving anymore. Today, the term has a connotation of "bad driver, busted for DWI". In my high school, every student eligible to apply for a driver's license was REQUIRED to take defensive driving - even if he never intended to get a license! Defensive driving means, the very last thing you ever want to hit, is an oncoming vehicle. Hitting a rock wall is slightly more survivable, than hitting an oncoming vehicle. Hitting a large tree is even more survivable. Running through an orchard of smaller trees is vastly more survivable. It will take a lot to convince me that the vast majority of these accidents were caused by anything other than driver stupidity. Take control of your life. If you can't control that vehicle - meaning, if you don't know HOW to control it under any and all circumstances - then DON'T DRIVE IT!!! Oh yeah. I have had a throttle stick on me. Several times, in fact, in a Mack Cruiseliner. The solution was, to stick my toe UNDER the accelerator, pull up, stop the truck, get out, and replace the broken throttle return spring. Something any moron can figure out. Also, I had a sticky butterfly on an old carbureted chevy to stick a couple times. Lifting on the accelerator didn't solve the problem - but turning the key to "off" did the trick. Think fast, or die. I'm alive to talk about my experiences, so I guess I'm a fast thinker.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
>>If your car suddenly accelerates and you cannot shift into neutral or press the brakes to stop it, you are not qualified to operate a motor vehicle.
When it happened to me, the brakes did not work. They felt very hard, and even stomping on them with both feet was not enough to push the pedal down very much, and it didn't do enough to slow the car down.
I did kill the engine after a few terrifying seconds of almost killing people, but not everyone knows you can do that when the car is moving, I guess.
I drove my dad's recent model toyota corolla and after driving it for less than 20 minutes this happened to me. I was merging on to a freeway and after the merge the car remained accelerating after I released my foot from the from the pedal. I tried pumping the accelerator which didn't do anything other than briefly accelerate the car even more. I tried braking and this worked for a bit but when the brake was released the car would briskly accelerate again. I tried braking and releasing and braking and releasing a few more times and the same thing happened every time. Finally I braked hard (looking in my rear view mirror which was thankfully clear) and heard a distinct click and the problem went way. I can not say whether on not the accelerator was stuck due to a mechanical problem or a electronic one but I can say it was most definitely not human error or the floor mat and that it was pressing hard on the break not the accelerator that seemed to 'unstick' it. Thankfully the accelerator 'unstuck' it self without further incident but it easy to see how this sort of thing would cause a serious accident. I can safely say toyota is full of BS on this one.
You win slashdot today, well done.
If you don't risk failure you don't risk success.
Some drivers have size 14 shoes and widths of EEEE. When one's foot hits the brake pedal, the right side of the shoe hits the accelerator. There can be no doubt that large feet are the cause of the misfortunes.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
What did the cop NOT do? He didn't shift into neutral. He didn't turn the key off. He didn't downshift, which would have made the top speed of the vehicle much lower.
Jesus Fucking Christ.
He didn't turn the key because the car doesn't have a key.
He didn't shift into neutral or another gear because, apparently, the 'shift into neutral' button is a damn electronic button that didn't work.
You goddamn morons aren't listening to a word of this, are you? Goddamn slashdot doesn't even see fit to fucking explain the actual damn problem with these cars, in that is is no manual off.
(There actually is a manual off...hold the 'start' button down and it cuts off, but he didn't know how to do it in his rented car, and neither did the highway patrol.)
The lack of mechanical off is why people are getting killed. Any car can go out of control, it's not worth trying to stop that, because people 'can always just turn the car off'...except, now, they can't.
He did not try driving into something less lethal than oncoming traffic, such as a pond, a field, a ditch, or even some undergrowth among some trees.
Yeah, all those ponds laying around freeways.
And, incidentally, he did run into something less lethal than oncoming traffic...he drove down the exit-ramp wall, and made it off the highway...at which point he crashed into a car sitting at the stop light at the end of the exit ramp, still going about 70.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Huh? That's what I just said.
The way my car controls are designed, it's not actually obvious you can do this. 'Defrost' is under the 'heat' part of the slider...but, of course, what the slider actually controls is 'where the air comes from and goes', and the compressor is mostly controlled by another slider, and other options under 'heat' force the compressor off.
I guess, in theory, it's technically four controls: How much air from inside, how much air from outside, how much air from the engine, and how much air from the compressor. Those could all be sliders, but I didn't mean to imply they couldn't simply it a little.
But I have some absurd slider with random positions that functionally is input and out and some compressor controls...and yet doesn't actually let me do things like direct air out the upper vents and the floor, because they didn't see fit to give that a position. Or direct air in from the floor vents and out the front and upper. OTOH, I have two ways to direct outside air through the front and floor vents...one that forces the compressor off, and one that turns it on. (Despite where I set the actual temp slider.)
This is not an idea that is especially complicated to present to people. You would not even need words, just a left-to-right diagram: select a single air in location - temp slider - select all air out locations - speed slider.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Why did you not shift to neutral?
This would have kept your power steering.
Those people are not qualified to be operating motor vehicles.
the original case of the experienced police officer that could not kill the engine nor shift the transmission into neutral. Pointing this out always annoys the self-appointed gear-heads who think every other driver is an idiot. BTW: push buttons for the transmission and starter = truly stupid design choices.
sorry no you still do its called the brakes and or the off buttion.
I addressed the brakes above.
The off button is just another input to the computer, not an actual cutoff of anything.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I can confirm that the Toyota cruise control in my Camry will activate at least as high as 90.
However, as I drive a clutch, I don't ever see "Crazy acceleration!!!111one!!!"
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
guess you never drove one. yes it has the cpu controlled key but it still has a manual shutoff like any other car. you can use either to start or shutoff the car.
it still has manul modes for shutoff and start for when the cpu keys batterys need replacing.
I did first, and the engine redlined, so I turned it off. Steering wasn't an issue in any event.
Dang, I had to look midway down the second page of comments to find someone who thought this article, from the title, was about software drivers being blamed. I hadn't heard of any previous instance where a software driver caused a car to spin out of control; that would have been somewhat scary.
All of your issues are because you have a PONTIAC. There's a reason why GM usually holds something like 7 spots on the annual ten worst cars made.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
What you simply dont understand is most of these instances are *driver error*, and the rest are badly placed floormats which I'd argue is again *driver error*. If you don't know how to drive your electronic car then buy a '72 Ford Pinto and shut the hell up.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
I've experienced momentary confusion while backing from driveway to road, particularly when my wife's 04 Sienna is at about 45 degrees of the turn and I'm being very alert for any previously unseen traffic approaching from either of two directions on the roadway, the tendency of my right foot to be poised momentarily over both brake and accelerator pedals is maximum -and it has happened a few times, fortunately without problems. But it is very disconcerting to suddenly sense the vehicle doing something it is not expected to be doing at that moment and the usual reaction to that may be to press down harder, perhaps inducing more acceleration than braking, or the opposite of that, depending on the direction of the turn. I have also experienced what seemed to be acceleration a very few times while driving forward on the straight, intending to gently slow the vehicle by gentle braking but, instead sensing slight acceleration The same mental alarm occurs but the occasions have apparently so brief I've been able to correct the problem almost without even having time to think about it, or to analyze it afterwards. I suspect that my personal physiology, 6 foot 3, 210 pounds, and maybe slightly different placement angles and distances between seat and pedals of the Sienna, versus those of my Dodge 2500 van, contribute to what I've experienced in the Sienna and increase the possibility of "operator error." I've never had similar experiences in any other vehicle.
I understand they've fucking driver error.
We have ignition keys to recover from error, of whatever kind.
A goddamn grease fire on a stove is operator error, but that doesn't mean we don't need fucking circuit breakers so we can't cut power when it happens.
Feel free to get pissed at people who don't know how to recover from error, but cables do stick, mats do get wedged, cruise control does come on without anyone doing it, so we have a fucking system to recover from those problems by turning off the engine.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
No it's not. Other cars have equally stupid designs. The 'max ac' thing to mean 'recirculate' is nearly universal, and I'll bet that 50% of people use it exactly backwards, using it when they first get in their car and it's hot, and then turning it 'down' to normal once it cools down.
About all that's 'better' in other designs is that there actually is a Compressor button, which is not something that really makes sense. That should just be on if you select air colder than outside. (There's also a 'defrost' button, which also turns it on, and _does_ make sense, because under some circumstances you want just normal hot air, and sometimes you want conditioned hot air to clear off the window.)
My father has a recent car with an output knob, but it's a spectacularly goofy one. It lets you mix some outputs, which is a pretty useless feature, and still doesn't just let you select them outright, so you can't, for example, send to the front and top, as those things aren't next to each other. But that part is saner than what I have. The rest of it is weird, though.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
I've 'seen' MAX A/C (my wife has that) but any car I've bought - Toyota, Mazda, Ford, have never had it.
My current car has climate control. I set it to the temperature I want and the car does whatever it needs to do to get there, ac or not. I can also override parts of it to force AC on or off, or to limit fan speed (Ford).
But generally I agree with you - companies really need to do a better job of usability engineering.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
I've never heard of anyone running to the circuit breaker for a grease fire. That's what fire extinguishers are for. regardless with a grease fire you don't end up blaming the stove for imaginary software errors. The operator screwed up - accept it. Don't shift blame to something else.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
Yeah, an actual 'set the temperature to what you want' is probably ideal. So that's not a great example anymore.
But cruise control is still fucked, where they insist on reusing buttons. Why? No one knows.
The joke is that for CC they actually could have had less controls than what they had, with one function per control, and it would have made more sense. An on/off button with a light on it, and a faster/slower knob (Which grabs the current speed on a push and uses that.)
Instead, there's a 'suspend' and 'resume' concept, that somehow isn't the same as it being 'off' and 'on'. No. I set the speed, it drives at that speed. I brake, it turns off, I push the button to turn it back on. A damn light is on when it's on, and flashes once and cuts off when I break. That's it.
That was my idea when I first realized how CC was supposed to operate. Now in modern cars with an LED display, there should be a second speedometer with the CC speed, and a 'CC on' signal. (Perhaps the CC speedometer could change color. Grey is off, green is on.)
Much, much saner.
As someone who's had a class in user interface design in college, it really is abysmal in cars, and the really really stupid part is that they could have just exposed the inner workings and had a more understandable interface.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?