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Mandatory Brake-Override Proposed For All Cars
Hugh Pickens writes "The LA Times reports that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration wants to require automakers to include a brake-throttle override system in all their cars and light trucks to help drivers regain control when a vehicle accelerates suddenly when the throttle becomes stuck or jammed. 'America's drivers should feel confident that any time they get behind the wheel they can easily maintain control of their vehicles — especially in the event of an emergency,' says Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. The move came after a fiery 2009 Lexus crash after a floor mat was improperly installed and may have trapped the accelerator pedal, causing the vehicle to race down California Highway 125 outside San Diego at more than 100 miles per hour, crashing and bursting into flames, killing an off-duty California Highway Patrol Officer and three members of his family. That crash led to a recall of 3.8 million Toyota and Lexus vehicles to fix the floor mat problem, and Toyota issued millions more recall notices to fix sticking gas pedals and other issues. Now Toyota has made a brake-override system standard, implementing it in all vehicles the company sold by the end of 2010, and most other automakers offer such a system on many of their vehicles or are adding it. Other automakers would have about two years to comply with the proposal (PDF). 'We learned as part of the comprehensive NASA and NHTSA studies of high-speed unintended acceleration that brake-override systems could help drivers avoid crashes,' says NHTSA Administrator David Strickland."
Do they do everything *EXCEPT* a space program now?
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
You just have to leave the key in the "on" position, for the steering to still work
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How about just put it in Neutral? The brakes will still work even if the accellerator is forced all the way down. Ray LaHood has been in the news more than any previous SecTrans, and has been at the forefront of all sorts of questionable new regulations (ban on text messaging, ban on using a phone at all even if it's hands free, ban on any sort of moving display like a GPS, etc.) He's definitely trying to make a name for himself, and it's costing us money as well as freedom.
I don't believe there has ever been a production model of car or truck where the brakes aren't FAR more powerful than the engine/transmission.
If you apply the brake firmly, you WILL stop, even if the engine is at Wide-Open Throttle.
http://www.caranddriver.com/features/how-to-deal-with-unintended-acceleration
"Flame away, I wear asbestos underwear"
The government wants cars to be unaffordable. They want to ladle so many requirements on building them that you'll need a six figure income to buy one. Sheesh.
I grew up in the 70's with a VW beetle as our family car. It didn't have anti-lock brakes, a third brake light, air conditioning, air-bags, a computer, or annoying "Door Ajar" voice. It had thin doors. Hell, it didn't even have a radiator.Those old bug engines were air-cooled. They were so light and easy to maintain, my dad overhauled one in our yard. He literally unbolted the engine from the motor mounts, lifted it up and out with his own hands, worked on it, then put it back. All without the help of pulleys, computer analysis kits, or microchips. You could drive to forever and back on a tank of gas. It was the most reliable car we ever owned.
And now, you couldn't build one in America if you wanted to, because the government would forbid it. "Inherently unsafe", they'd call it. They'd produce 3,000 pages of requirements to be filled before you could actually make one. And yet my family drove one for almost two decades, and it was safe, cheap, and reliable. So yeah, I do think that the government wants to price Americans out of the auto market sometimes.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Then you use the Emergency Floormat Removal Pedal (assuming it's not jammed by anything else).
I would rather ruin the engine than kill myself. Your results may vary...
Simple, they panic. I know everyone on here thinks they are far too smart, and this could never happen to them, but it can. When your car starts accelerating wildly, your brain goes into 'I am about to be killed' mode. You do not think, you react. Your instincts take over. If you are an experienced driver, your only instinct is 'mash the brakes as hard as possible'. When that doesn't work, you get even more panicky. Now your instincts are 'curl up and hope for the best'.
Unless you have been specially trained, your instincts are not going to be 'turn off the key (but not so far as to lock the wheel)', or 'put it in neutral', or any of the other ideas people think are so obvious.
This is also why a child can think of the 'turn off the key' option: first, they are not fully aware of the terrible danger they are in, so they don't panic. Second, they have no driving instinct to hit the brakes. They are calm enough to think of another option.
Let us just keep making stuff more expensive and harder to get so that the stupidest people in society can continue to pass on their genes.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Don't most cars today have rev limiters? Certainly the Lexus from the article had one. Not the best for the engine perhaps, but not catastrophic either (I quite regularly hit the limiter in my Acura, though to be fair, it's only engaged momentarily). Even if the result were to throw a rod, it would still be better than winding things up to very high speeds and then losing control and crashing ...
I think the big thing is how many people would be calm enough to engage the tools (such as turn off the key, put the car in neutral, engage the brake override) even if they were available.
I once nearly drove my truck through a restaurant wall ... I'd realized I'd dropped something while getting into the truck after I'd gotten in and put the truck into reverse. I can't explain why, but I thought to myself, "I don't need to put it in park, I'll just put it in neutral, hop out and pick it up". So with that in mind I pulled the shifter from reverse down through neutral and into drive as I was hopping out. As you might imagine, the truck started forward up and onto the sidewalk. So, instead of calmly reaching into the truck and a) pushing the shifter into Neutral, b) turning off the key, c) pulling on the parking brake, I chose to d) try to jump into the moving truck and step on the brake. The truck is a little higher than most cars, so you have to step up into it ... so as I was hopping on one foot forward while trying to put my foot on the brake, the truck was climbing the curb. The result was that my foot gave the brake only a glancing blow, after which it slipped onto the accelerator ... Well, now the truck lurched forward and across the sidewalk into the bushes on its path towards the restaurant wall ... I stopped it with about 6' to spare. You should have seen the expression on the people sitting in the booth next to the window as this truck was lurching toward them. (Note that they were like deer in the headlights too ... unlike TV or movies, no one was diving out of the booth to get away, they were just there looking at a 2 1/2 ton truck coming right at them)
Sometimes people's brains (at least sometimes my brain) doesn't always arrive at the best choice of action :-(
The computer was screwed up? Didn't the article just say that the problem was the mat stuck under the accelerator pedal?
The driver's biggest mistake was likely not taking the time beforehand to familiarize himself with the vehicle's unfamiliar controls. Had the driver been prepared, this tragedy could have likely been avoided.
Yes, that is true, but no, he shouldn't have had to do that. We standardize certain controls on a car for a reason. Steering wheels are in the same place, pedals are in the same place, etc.
I see no reason why we shouldn't standardize the 'Cut the car off' manner also. Keyless cars should be required to have (In addition to this brake disengage) a little switch, right where the key was, that you can twist, exactly like a key, and cut the engine off.
This isn't just for drivers. What if the driver has a heart attack or something and collapses, and a passenger is trying to stop the car? Or, here's a fun one, what if someone is working on their car and wants to make it sure cannot be turned on while they're under the hood, and that someone in the house can't innocently press the remote ignition button?
There should be a damn mechanical switch in keyless cars. It doesn't have to be a 'key' that is removable, it doesn't have to ever be used, but there should be a switch that physically disables power to the starter and fuel pump, in an accessible location that everyone knows, period.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?