Slashdot Mirror
Driver Trapped In Speeding Car At 125 Mph
Hugh Pickens writes writes "The Guardian reports that Frank Lecerf was driving his Renault Laguna in Northern France when the car's speed jammed at 60mph. Then each time he tried to brake, the car accelerated, eventually reaching 125mph and sticking there. While uncontrollably speeding through the fast lane as other cars swerved out of his way, he managed to call emergency services who immediately dispatched a platoon of police cars. Realizing Lecerf had no choice but to keep racing along until his fuel ran out, they escorted him at high speed across almost 125 miles of French motorway, past Calais and Dunkirk, and over the Belgian border. After about an hour, Lecerf's tank spluttered empty and he managed to swerve into a ditch in Alveringem in Belgium, about 125 miles from his home. 'My life flashed before me,' says Lecerf. 'I just wanted it to stop.' His lawyer says Lecerf will file a legal complaint over 'endangerment of a person's life.'"
Glad nobody got hurt.
Turn it to "off" and the engine will lose power. The car will stop. Also, you can shift it in to neutral. Might not be the best for the engine at high RPMs, but it'll do the trick.
Seriously, I have trouble believing these "My car is stuck going fast and can't stop!" stories are anything other than failure to understand how to operate your vehicle.
And this car didn't allow it to be shut off or to be shifted into neutral to release power to the wheels? Swerving through traffic gaining speed was the answer?
Glad he didn't have a full tank or he might have broken orbit by now ...
Apparently French cars don't have ignition switches. Or gear shifts.
Do they make a car where you cant either turn the key off, or shift it into neutral or just pull up the emergency brake??? Also, if he was already stuck going 125 by the time he got ahold of the police, how did they ever catch him?? Im suspicious of this whole story.
The article mentioned that the car was adapted with controls for people with disabilities (probably hand controls for the accelerator and brakes).
Not only would this kind of modification introduce another point of failure in the system, the hand controls were probably not debugged and tested to the same degree as the traditional ones.
If you're heading east at 125 miles per hour, and there's a police station 75 miles east of you, can the police from that station ever catch you, even if they take a 15 minute donut break?
The apparent inability to otherwise change gears in the car or turn it off sounds a bit more concerning. That would be pretty standard advice from the guy on the other end of 999/911.
Sometimes you donâ(TM)t need to read the article....
Automatics still have a neutral gear. Most people don't use it, so I can understand a driver in a panic situation not thinking of it, but I would expect he would try it when stuck in that situation for an hour.
The engine transfers power through the transmission to the wheels. Disengage the transmission from the wheels by putting it in neutral.
The most exotic transmission I can think of is a CVT transmission. But can't that be put into neutral too?
I had a french car once (or twice) a Peugeot, it was a diesel. I had a situation where I couldn't turn it off. Keys out everything, nothing worked, it just kept running, eventually I managed too stall it. This is different to TFA as the accelerator wasn't stuck, but it might be a contributory factor.
All of them have an "N" setting that I've seen. It disengages the engine from the wheels. You'd need it for towing and so on.
Turn the ignition key to OFF will unpower everything, including engine systems.
If you have a more recent car with keycards, press and hold the POWER button and pull out the card. It's not very complicated either way....
TFS mentions that he crossed the border into Belgium. How does cross-border highway police jurisdiction work in Europe? Can the French cops follow him across, or do they have to call ahead and have Belgian cops waiting to take over?
Everything is better with chainsaws.
Details Missing from the quoted article is this bit:
The Frenchman, who suffers from epilepsy and drives a specially-modified car that has controls on the steering wheel to operate the throttle and brake, has filed a legal complaint against the vehicle's manufacturer.
Source here.
Unless Renault did these modifications for him, I doubt he has a chance in hell of winning his suit.
I've never seen a car you couldn't force into Neutral even under heavy acceleration.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Because you missed the "adapted for disabled drivers" and "wasn't the first time the speed dial jammed".
Clearly not a stock Renault.
This is a car adapted for disabled people. RTFA before saying "hey, just do something."
But the article don't say what are the change from a regular car.
125 miles of French motorway, past Calais and Dunkirk, and over the Belgian border.
'My life flashed before me,' says Lecerf. 'I just wanted it to stop.'
My, if a car were taking me at high speed to Belgium, I'd be scared to death, too.
Ezekiel 23:20
This was not a stock car. It had been modified for a "disabled" person who also had epileptic seizures. We don't know exactly HOW it was modified from the articles, but it could have hand controls and other things that really have nothing to do with a "normal" car and could have contributed to the problems.
It might also explain why he might have been unable or incapable of turning off the car or putting it into neutral.
There's a possibility he didn't have one.
The Laguna featured a 'keyless' ignition system which, instead of a key, used a credit card style device to unlock the car and start the engine. -Wikipedia
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
If you have a card, did you try holding down the power button? Most people simply press it briefly when the engine is running and assume it's not doing anything.
Older diesel engines could run without electric power as long as they had fuel; modern diesels depend on high-pressume injectors which in turn only work with a properly functioning ECU. Cutting power to any of those prevents the engine from working that instant, and that should be the case once you manually remove power...
Also, if he was already stuck going 125 by the time he got ahold of the police, how did they ever catch him??
Simple, they just dispatch the police from the station where he is GOING TO BE instead of where he was. Besides, nothing is preventing the cops from doing 130 or even 150mph to catch up to him.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
This song seems appropriate.
That's a phenomena specific to diesel engines. Diesel's don't use a spark to ignite the fuel mixture like gasoline engines do, they use the heat from piston compression. Thus, so long as vacuum pressure and fuel supply is maintained, a diesel can continue running without electrical power.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
So after the latest Dice ad, I finally created an account on Reddit, and already read about this story there. Now I understand all the posts about Slashdot always being the last to the party. Can anyone recommend the best subreddits to subscribe to when trying to replace Slashdot news?
No brakes and the car would probably have still gone a distance on momentum.
Not to mention, I think he was done with this ride and wanted to get the fuck off ASAP.
...the article addressed them (if you read between the lines).
The car was modified for disabled use and was apparently all-electronic control, including start/stop, gear, power, and brake. "Braking" accelerated the car from 100 km/hr to 200 km/hr. As I imagine the driver was familiar with the car, he may have tried using the other electronic controls--although after "braking" doubled his speed I imagine he was reluctant to do so for fear of what would actually happen. This is further supported by a Renault tech being in contact with the police who couldn't suggest anything more for the driver to do besides wait for fuel exhaustion.
The headline and summary is missing vital information: the car has been modified for disabled drivers. Hugh Pickens and Timothy have both practiced bad journalism/editorialism by bringing this article to Slashdot and hiding important facts within the summary.
Suggestions to shift to neutral, stop the engine and so forth are uninformed as the severity of the modifications are as yet unknown (not published).
The strangest things about this mythical story is that Renault is an anagram of Neutral.
The same thing happened to a driver in Oz awhile back.
Modern cars contain numerous independent systems which communicate using an internal bus. If one of those systems fails in a way such that it floods the bus with packets, no other system can get a message through.
If you happen to be on cruise-control at that time, there may be no way out of it. The signals from the steering-wheel computer [buttons] or brake won't get to the computer.
Here's some info that came from the Oz incident:
1) Modern cars don't have a direct key-switch - the computer starts and stops the engine. Turning the engine off is not guaranteed to stop the car. (This was tried in the Oz case.)
2) Some cars do not have direct shift capability; ie - it's "shift by wire": the shifter tells the computer what gear to be in. (Admittedly, I've never seen one, don't know if it's true.)
3) A driver is not strong enough to stop the car against the engine, especially since the engine can down-shift to get more power. Some "mythbusters"-style experimenters disagree with this statement, but their conclusions don't track with these incidents. Also, consider that the driver may be female, young, elderly, out-of-shape and otherwise incapable of braking with the full force of an "average" human driver.
I used to write the software for aircraft instruments, and one thing the hardware should always do is "fail safe". If you have a remote sensor such as a switch, in this case the brake light switch, you always have some mechanism to determine whether the wire is broken. If the remote sensor is on a communication bus, you always look for a "heartbeat" packet saying that the remote sensor is working properly. If something fails, the default action is to go out of cruise-control.
Car software is not safety certified (as aircraft systems are), and perhaps they should be. This will become more important as cars get smarter, and will be critical for self-driving cars.
"I had a french car once (or twice) a Peugeot, it was a diesel. I had a situation where I couldn't turn it off. "
All Diesels are built that way, not only Peugeot.
Since in France, around 80% of the cars are Diesel, there's a good chance this one was one too.
Got keys in the ignition? Take them out.
Yep, because locking your steering column is the best option at such speeds.
No, you want to drop the key to ACC but do -NOT- remove it or go all the way down to OFF.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
As the AC above points out, they are testing self-driving cars at Oxford University.
Or as I like to call them "pedestrian and cyclist killing machines of death".
At least they don't run on horsemeat.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
If it happened to me and I couldn't turn it off I would start ripping out every fuse and relay I could get my hands on, one of them would be bound to kill it - I think.
Since I always drive stick shifts I would throw it into neutral, engine explosion hazard or not. Considering this thing is modified for his handicap I understand not everything I think of would be feasible. I had a difficult time driving a car modified for a paraplegic. I wasn't used to the hand controls and my feet got tangled in the pedal pressers when I tried to drive it normally.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
What car doesn't have one?
It's called a keyless ignition. The "key" in this car is a card (which you put in a slot) and you push a button to start/stop the engine.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Many of them do not have keys, they have an RFID chip dongle thingy and a start button.
I do admit that I don't understand why neutral wouldn't have worked, although perhaps they were afraid the engine would red line and start a fire or explode or something before the car could slow down enough to escape from if he disengaged it at that speed and it kept getting gas.
With no brakes, despite the fact that his engine was disengaged, he'd still be going very, very fast on momentum and it would take a minute or two to be able to bail out. Not to mention they wouldn't want him to bail until they were certain no one else would get hit by an out of control, driverless car.
Make, model, modifications fitted?
What piece of shit car uses cable master cylinder actuation?
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Even if that were the case, putting the transmission into neutral would still be a logical option. No loss of power steering, and the car the car should soon coast to a stop. Sure the engine might red-line, but I suspect that he's going to be talking with the manufacturer about the car anyway if this really happened, and most people would rather risk damage to the engine than to themselves and anyone they hit.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I imagine the resulting investigation might reveal that you were in it for the entertainment value. They probably would not give your performance high marks. They would then throw you in jail when they were done.
I'm afraid it won't let you do that, Dave.
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
A Renault engineer got on the phone with the guy and walked him through various attempts to stop the car, stop the engine, go into neutral, etc. I would hazard a guess that the engineer had him try anything considered safe (don't want to accidentally lock the steering wheel at that speed).
If the computer were sending commands to disengage the throttle but there was a mechanical problem or a bug in an electronic component the engine simply may not have responded to the command. Depending on the transmission design, at max throttle it may have refused or been unable to disengage and slide into neutral either.
I think this sort of thing highlights how important it is to have an alternate emergency cutoff, one not dependent on the electronic control systems. Something like a secondary switch contact in the on/off button that if held down for 15 seconds automatically cuts power to the fuel pump with a simple, dumb electronic relay circuit.
Of course if you've ever looked at the "security" or "design" of these in-car networks (CANBUS, etc) then you realize how awful they are. Think along the lines of your average cable company DVR. They are full of holes - eg a radio that had a bluetooth stack full of buffer overruns, allowing you to hijack its CPU, which cross-connected various supposedly segmented busses, giving you remote access to the ECU. The demo I saw just rolled the windows down or remotely flash the headlights, but you could certainly stop the engine, turn off traction control, unrecoverably crash the ECU, etc.
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
If he was only driving a Tesla Model S he would have ran out of fuel in no time.
Damn you fossil fuel vehicles!
All the key does is telling the cars computer that the one having it is allowed to start it. The computer seized up, and the key was probably pulled to no effect. I doubt anyone capable of getting into a car would be dumb enough to not try that.
As for gears. There is probably no mechanical connection between the gear shift and the gearbox. The driver tells the computer what he would like to do, this time the computer had a lobotomy.
WTF is a hypermarket?! It sounds awesome.
Do they make a car where you cant either turn the key off, or shift it into neutral or just pull up the emergency brake???
Also, if he was already stuck going 125 by the time he got ahold of the police, how did they ever catch him??
Im suspicious of this whole story.
That car model, the Renault Laguna, is especially made to be modded for disabled people. I don't know what kind of disability the driver has (the article doesn't say, although he did have two epileptic seizures because of and during the hectic drive).
According to the original article in French. The car only reached 125 miles per hour near the end of the journey.
Plus, I don't think it's a matter of catching up to him as much as it was a matter of waiting for him. They opened three toll booths for him. And the cops/poulets* used a supped-up Renault Megane to keep up with him (for how long it kept up, the article doesn't say).
note * Poulet means chicken in French. It's what we say casually when we say 'cops'. The word chicken in French doesn't have any of the same negative connotations that the same word has in English so it's ok to use. If you're an American visiting France and if you want to blend in, "poulet" is the word you should use when talking to a cop in France.
I doubt there would be any easy access to the fuses from inside the cockpit. These are more often placed under the hood, and if you looked under the hood of a brand new vehicle, you see that there is a a solid wall of plastic with almost nothing user accessible. I'm fairly sure a least one recent car model doesn't even have an oil cap visible under the hood.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
Yes, because in pre-agreement times the police forces of adjoining countries never had any means of communicating.
#DeleteChrome
That assumes either the gear shift is mechanically connected to the transmission, or the onboard computer which is currently making you accelerate actually responds when you change the gearshift and attempts to move to neutral, and it doesn't have software telling it not to move to neutral if the rpms are over a certain speed.
Plug wires you could just pull free haven't really been seen since distributor-less ignition became common in the mid-90s.
The average age of vehicles owned by Americans has been going up steadily (about 10 years old is the figure now!) and the comments here seem to reflect that, vastly underestimating how computerized and "black-boxed" cars have become nowadays.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
Yeah yeah, it "happened" to him 3 times and his driving license was cancelled since 2004 over speeding tickets. But sure, this is the car manufacturer fault if your modified car (gas and brake operated from the steering wheel) has a strange behavior.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
Where does it say that?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
TrÃs drÃle. Next you'll tell the poor Americans to address the police as 'flics'.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
You're assuming that slot actually has any meaning beyond a holder for the card. Under normal operations, removing it may do nothing. Once the car has become possessed, it may not care if the key even exists. The "start" button will do nothing with the car at speed; again, once possessed, it may not even listen to that button. The gear selector is also electronic, and thus may not obey the operator.
If you're VERY lucky, you might be in an area with run-away truck ramps. That'll GD stop the car. Otherwise, you'll have to start physically disconnecting things (read: pull fuses) -- and that's hard to do at speed on a highway. (and in some cars, impossible without opening th driver door.)
If you're still clueless how to shut the engine off with the key after an hour or so of driving
This car has a key-less ignition.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Actually with most automatics you still should not tow them even in neutral as part of the transmission is still engaged. Sometimes it is considered okay to tow at very low speeds over very short distances.
Seriously
I don't know why manufacturers of modern computer controlled cars don't simply install a kill switch, either disconnecting the ignition like a motorcycle does, or mechanically shut off the fuel supply with a solenoid.
Hit the kill switch, engine stops. You still have all electrical power and control so just roll to the side of the road.
Solenoids to control shut off fuel are not even novel, my early 80s car has a solenoid to shut down the fuel supply at the carburettor when you turn off the key (anti run-on).
NZ Electronics Enthusiasts: Check out my Trade Me Listings
Most cars that use normal keys also have a steering lock built in when the key is removed. So, if you ripped the key out, best case scenario, you'd get the engine to turn off. Worst case scenario, you'd be unable to steer the vehicle.
note * Poulet means chicken in French. It's what we say casually when we say 'cops'. The word chicken in French doesn't have any of the same negative connotations that the same word has in English so it's ok to use. If you're an American visiting France and if you want to blend in, "poulet" is the word you should use when talking to a cop in France.
Thankyou for that helpful tip. Over here we use Pig not Chicken. If you want to be respectful, use the full title, Muthafookin Pig.
Every diesel I am aware of has a fuel shutoff solenoid that defaults to off unless it is energized electrically. So no, it can't continue running without electrical power.
I hasten to add, however, that if the turbo decides to take a dump and flood the intake with engine oil, the engine will not only continue to run with the fuel shut off, it can run away to an extremely high rpm and destroy itself. The number of VW TDIs which succumb to this particular death is disturbing.
Both Toyota and Audi have been accused of this before. In both cases, the DOT determined that the cars were not at fault. http://www.caranddriver.com/features/its-all-your-fault-the-dot-renders-its-verdict-on-toyotas-unintended-acceleration-scare-feature Car & Driver published a How To Deal With Unintended Acceleration in December, 2009 which involved testing cars, including a 540 HP Mustang which was able to be stopped in under 1,000 feet from 100 MPH with the accelerator held continuously to the floor. http://www.caranddriver.com/features/how-to-deal-with-unintended-acceleration
Isn't this a dupe? Exactly the same thing was reported on /. a couple of years ago (just before Toyota's sudden-acceleration debacle), involving again a Frenchman driving a Renault.
Guess that The Guardian is as reliable as ever...
This is diesel runaway caused by engine oil getting sucked into the intake. The engine oil makes a fine fuel which can't be shut off. Probably came from a turbo failure.
Yep, even cars with a CVT (such as the Prius, which also uses push-button start on many models) have a neutral "gear".
The problem is that the shifter control is electronic, not physical. I mean, there's a physical thing that you push around, but the actual control to the transmission is an electronic signal and must be interpreted by the car's computer. Given that the computer apparently was under the impression that "brake" meant "speed up", this message may not have worked.
Of course, that's weird in and of itself. On every production car I've ever seen, no matter how much electronics it has, the brake pedal *does* have a physical linkage to the calipers. You can use it when the car is completely turned off, in fact, though you have to push pretty hard once the power braking assist goes away. You won't get traction control and such in that state either, but it doesn't matter - the car will stop. The brakes should also be more powerful than the engine (especially on a car that tops out at 125MPH) so you should be able to stop even with the enging revving and in gear (this might cause the engine to stall at that speed, but that's perfectly OK in this situation even if the transmission might not like it).
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Except on his car, with the hand controls, brakes are directly activated, even if running through some ABS nonsense. Even a Bugatti Veyron (1200 BHP) doesn't have enough power to overcome the brakes, when fully applied; press the throttle and brakes full on the car will stop, it will just take longer. Your straw-man drivers are also unlikely to be driveing a 1200 BHP car, and it does not take much braking power to overcome a 200 BHP engine. There is NOT "always more power"; an engine only has, within a few percent, what the manufacturer rates it to have.
Hand controls, OTOH require servo activation, not just assist, and if the servo electronics get confused, you may well need an assist
How in the name of Holy Fuck do you drive 125mph for 125 miles while having two epileptic seizures and not crash?
Let's see - which might be more valuable: the car, or your life? Put the car in neutral and let the engine blow up (or sit at it's rev limit).
Mine is an 05, so granted not the newest thing available, but not ancient, it has two of those panels I can reach.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
I know that, as a community, most of us do not RTFA before posting, but the amount of stupidity on display for this particular article is just amazing.
1) it's BRAKE, not break.
2) it's STEEL, not steal (as in a cable)
3) modern cars do NOT have keys, so you can not simply just turn it to the ACC or OFF position because there is no such thing
4) computers, which most of us love, control almost every function of a modern car, including what gear you are in, whether the engine is running or not, so on and so forth. if the computers are crashed/bugged out/in a loop/one of a million bugs came to the surface, the driver loses control over what the car can and can not do.
I've come to the conclusion that no one on this site can spell correctly AND no one here drives or has even heard of a modern car's features. I have no solution to the spelling part, but for the love of Jebus, watch a car show once in awhile. I suggest Top Gear (the original UK version, not the crappy US version). You will learn a lot about cars from that show, technology-wise. This is a tech site, right? Keep up on current (car) technology, you noobs.
That's a phenomena specific to diesel engines. Diesel's don't use a spark to ignite the fuel mixture like gasoline engines do, they use the heat from piston compression. Thus, so long as vacuum pressure and fuel supply is maintained, a diesel can continue running without electrical power.
Fuel pumps are driven electronically too (for the last N decades) , normally turning the key off will also kill power to the fuel pump. In fact I once owned a car where the owner had installed a hidden switch under the seat to turn the fuel pump on and off, purely as an anti-theft measure - although I'm sure this French driver wishes his car had one of those.
Also (I'm sure you know this but some readers may not, judging by the number of "why didn't he just use the handbrake" comments), petrol engines continue to run without the battery being connected - the engine's mechanical output drives the alternator which powers the spark plugs. Turning the key off normally interrupts the flow from battery/alternator to relevant part(s) of the ingition system.
First, the brakes are always strong enough to stop the car. Basic safety feature. Things may break though if you are on the gas at the same time. Second, whether manual or automatic, you can always put it in neutral, even if it may require some force and, again, you may break things. Again, basic safety feature.
This guy risked his life out of stupidity.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Back in the day I had an RX7 that was prone to flooding. I got pretty good at pulling the fuel injector fuse, starting it and plugging it back in before the car stalled. If you had an extra few hundred bucks laying around you could also install a switch that would cut the power to the injectors from the dash. That might not be a bad idea on some of these newfangled cars -- a toggle switch with a direct method of killing the engine with no computers in the way. The RX7 also had a throttle that was prone to sticking, but it was pretty easy to pop it into neutral, pull to the side, turn off the engine, pop the hood and hose down the throttle assembly with silicone lubricant whenever that happened (That was a VERY fun car to drive!)
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Yeah, I have a TDI, so I know all about this. You can take it out of gear and come to a safe stop and if you know what to do under the hood you can cut the air supply which will kill the engine without damaging it. There is a relay which should cut the air automatically if you turn off the key, but there are instances where that fails (something gets stuck).
But if you don't' do any of this, then the engine will eventually burn through all of the engine oil and then seize. Given the distance the car went, this doesn't sound like what happened.
This car has a key-less ignition.
Most still have some form of safety cutoff. In my Toyota holding the button for 3 seconds cuts the power, just like a computer power switch.
A whole new world of jobs just opened up before the man, F1, stunt driving, getaway driver...
You don't always have a discrete pump, it could function from sucking pressure from the mechanical injectors (which could be driven by the gearbox... driven by the engine). Only the real modern (and expensive) engines are driven by electrical control.
This is one of those reasons they have governors. Without it, the engine would runaway and destroy itself, as more engine output means more fuel draw which means more engine output etc...
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
People panic and their brains slow down as the car speeds up. The only solution is to have a large RED button on the dashboard labeled "Oh Shit!" At least they don't forget the car isn't driving for them.... couple more years and that'll happen - could be parallel parking accidents already are being blamed on the computer...
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Why don't we start arming cops with some highly directional EMP weapons? If the computer is fried, that's a fine outcome. Power's off, car isn't going anywhere anymore. No more OJ chase scenes, just nuke his electronics (not from orbit) and be done with it.
I guess if you had a pacemaker that might not be so hot, but then again 125mph isn't really a healthy speed either.
Clearly we're solving the wrong problem with the keys and neutral.
Slashdot Patriotism: We Support our Dupes!
What do you bet that Renault didn't even test his aftermarket modifications.? They probably used the existing pedals.
Would you pronounce some after market add on as "fine"?
After all, if you touch them you become responsible for them.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Oh really?
You mean only engines equipped with such a shutoff do. Not all of them do, though anything meant for road use built within 15 years damn well should!
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Yeah up north here working in the oil fields, your diesel needs to have a positive air shutoff, which will kill a diesel even if the fuel keeps getting supplied (because H2S in the air will make it keep going I guess). If I ever got my own diesel I'd probably have one installed.
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
Wow, that was a hurrr moment. My link is exactly what you describe.
Don't mind me...
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
I've never understood why cars and the like don't have fuel cut-off mechanisms available to the driver.
The few boats I've been on had - they was a tag/cord you could yank, and when done it would physically block the fuel line.
I could see this as being one of the first things that could be done after a major accident. Yank the handle, chances of a fire shoot right down.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
This what I don't get. Shift the car into Neutral. Then coast or break to a stop.
You can do this on manual and automatic transmissions. Heck you can do it on a hybrid.
You may burn your engine out, but that is better than racing out of control.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I would install a toggle switch that would break connection to the coil. For you mechanics out there would this work?
Look for a made for TV movie called......"Runaway Car"...
Judd Nelson's performance as an annoyingly whiny passenger in is enough for you to root for the car to finally slam into an embankment.
Dollars to donuts he was pressing the accelerator instead of the brake.
And even with stupid cars that don't let you turn them off because electronics is better than a key, stick it neutral. Sure you might blow the engine, but that sounds like it has higher survival chances. Of course if he really was stamping on the brake then and the engine was winning, then you want to do that before you destroy your brakes.
If start/stop button in cars like this are allowed to solely trigger software a MCU it's a failure of both the regulator and the designers.
IMO there should always be a way to turn off the engine which relies on simple hardware ... connecting some parallel electronics to the start button to detect say a 2 second depression for an emergency shutdown without going through anything more complex than passives, transistors and relays is trivial.
All the key does is telling the cars computer that the one having it is allowed to start it.
In almost all electronic key systems, the key is only needed to start the car. After that, the car will continue to run, key or no key.
When they first came out, there were numerous stories of person A starting the car, then person B driving away in it.... they were fine until they parked and shut down the engine; then they coudn't restart it. Now most such cars have a warning that goes off if the key is removed from the car - won't shut down the engine, but at least gives you a warning.
It's done this way for a reason - you don't want a momentary loss of contact (mechanical contact, or RF contact in a keyless system) to shut down the engine on the highway.
last time i read an article like this the guy was faking it
Just another second banana
Put the PRNDL on N.
tldr What could possibly cause your break to accelerate, and stick? Sounds like BS.
or you could notice that all of those key cylinders have in intermediate position between on and lock... one where the engine is off, accessories are on, and steering is unlocked.
So if you aren't a complete moron, you turn the key from "run" to "accessory" and the engine shuts off, and you maintain full steering and braking control. In fact this was taught extensively in my driver training class under emergency procedures (the instructor would also use it to simulate a stall by reaching over and turning off the engine at inopportune moments, never did the steering lock)
I've actually used this feature, I have had a car malfunction where the accelerator got stuck down (the brake pedal actually physically broke and jammed against the floor mat) After my heart leapt through my throat I simply turned the key, brought the vehicle to a safe stop, and figured out what was going on. In my case I ended up removing the accelerator pedal from the control arm, and then driving straight to the dealer for a new part using the control arm instead of a full pedal. Of course because I didn't loose my head, I don't get the joy of seeing my name in the papers, and can't really sue anyone for damages. On the bright side though, there was never any real risk to myself or anyone else (despite this happening on a very narrow road with many sharp curves)
The fuses inside your car operate the radio, lights, accessories, etc.
The fuses that operate the ignition coil, engine computer, etc, generally reside in the engine compartment.
++points. Thank you.
He did call the police and it wasn't a "normal" car, but one adapted for disabled drivers. God knows what ugly hacks they made to his car to make it adapted and what important safety measures were ripped out of the car to do so. Renault has a rather good safety record compared to other cars in the same class and price range and this is not how a "normal" Renault Laguna would handle.
Presumably some form of throttle control/brake single lever control was put on the car to replace the pedals. If you use a single sensor system for that, you can't pick up if the sensor fails. What if the sensor for "decelerate" was broken? He'd be trying to wiggle the lever to get it to work, telling the control unit to accelerate the car every time he did so. This is why cars with electronic throttle control (most modern cars have that) are equipped with dual sensors and an elaborate sensor malfunction detection built into the software. Brakes are often electronically assisted, but still work on hydraulic power and in case of sensor failure, you can still stop the car with the basic hydraulic system connected directly to the pedal. I doubt very much that Renault modified this car for him, so if anything, he should be going after the company that did the modification.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Of course the fuel shutoff solenoid jamming open has been known to happen too. My old Mercedes Diesel actually had a lever under the hood with a bright red stop sign painted on it for just such an occasion (it was a physical fuel shutoff) I did also talk to someone who had the turbo issue you mentioned on a Mitsubishi Diesel, he was lucky though, he had a snorkel on his truck so he just threw a rag in the snorkel which choked off the air supply (on that particular vehicle the normal air intake is in a thoroughly difficult to access location) Considering I have had a turbo failure dump oil in to the exhaust, and considering how easy it would be for a failure putting oil in to the intake, I keep thinking that I really should develop an emergency plan to deal with such a situation...
I'm going to wait for Elon Musk to post the data logs before I believe this story. Clearly a hit piece on Renault.
Actually, if you put it in neutral, you are practically guaranteed to total the engine within seconds due to gross overreving (bent or thrown rods). The proper response is to leave it in high gear and bury the brake pedal on the floor until it stops and stalls. Unfortunately, that won't work fully with an automatic because it will never stall.
The only solution that seems to me likely to work without fail is adding a very husky butterfly valve in the intake with a stout pull-cable leading into the cabin. An adequate supply of high volume CO2 which you could release remotely into the intake should work, but would have to be tested, which is something you do NOT want to do on your own engine.
In this specific case, blowing up the engine would not have been so much of a problem. The vehicle would have stopped and the man would have survived. The fact that he still survived is almost a miracle and not really a reason why that wouldn't have been preferable.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I guess we're finally there, starting with the microcontrollers in cars.
Blowing up your engine sounds like an excellent way to safely stop your car while going at 200km/h.
You still need neutral in some types of automatic car washes (those where one wheel engages in a small sled that pulls your car through the washing device)
The reason is the pump in transmissions that circulates oil is on the mainshaft - the shaft that is coupled with the engine. In Neutral, only the countershaft turns, not the mainshaft. Without lubrication, stuff will get damaged.
You have tow trucks that can do around 135mph? Even 125 wouldn't be enough, to allow for fine-tuned positioning.
Not to mention the additional free space required on the road - keeping even a single lane clear was good going.
Um, must cars won't lock the wheel if the ignition is off. (E.g. my 2011 mazda 2 doesn't) If you want a safe way to test this park your car on a hill and the remove the handbrake, in most cars you can still steer.
null
No, but there would have been a border checkpoint with a barrier on it.
null
An adequate supply of high volume CO2 which you could release remotely into the intake should work, but would have to be tested, which is something you do NOT want to do on your own engine.
Good thinking; I'll do it on my girlfriend's engine.
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
Many people with seizure disorders are able to control the problem with medication. In the USA, it varies by state, but if you can go 3-6 months seizure-free, you can legally drive.
Yeah, probably. I think I like my old fashioned ignition key even more now. (Of course, the so-called state of the art push button ignition systems weren't even an option on my 12 year old Jeep.) Just turn that key to "Off" and a problem like this would have been simply solved.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
If I couldn't shift to neutral, my first thought would be to turn the car off. Surely there's a key or a button that can be pressed to kill power. Granted that's not the safest thing to do at 125 MPH, but I would have done so before having reached 125 MPH, it's safe enough to do so on a straight stretch of road where you don't need to rely so much on power steering, and it's safer than continuing to drive 125 miles at 125 MPH.
that. motorcycles have had kill switches for decades, the fact that a car has been designed and produced and allowed on the road without a method to kill it like that is a disgrace.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
That car model, the Renault Laguna, is especially made to be modded for disabled people. I don't know what kind of disability the driver has (the article doesn't say, although he did have two epileptic seizures because of and during the hectic drive).
Epileptic seizures, and going 60 MPH (or 100 km/h as this is in Europe) or more. Twice. And still stayed on the road? Makes one wonder if there isn't any other modifications like lane-keeping there as well. Depending on the degree of epilepsy, but at that speed, say 30 m/s, one cannot be out cold for much more than a second before leaving the road.
SIGBUS @ NO-07.308
Then how are you supposed to tow them? Do you have to get a flatbed truck?
The more people I meet, the better I like my dog.
If you're an American visiting France and if you want to blend in, "poulet" is the word you should use when talking to a cop in France.
If you're an American visiting France, you're not going to blend in. It is physically impossible for a foreigner to speak French without attracting hoots of derision from the locals. I don't care how good at French you were in school, unless you are bilingual and were brought up by at least one actual French parent speaking French along with English, you're not going to cut it.
This is assuming you were prepared to physically disguise yourself to start with, of course. It is generally possible to spot an American tourist from a fair distance before they even open their mouth (I say this as someone from the UK, the same thing applies to us).
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
No loss of power steering
That's the least of your worries, I'd have thought. Power steering is great for making low speed turning easier, it really doesn't matter that much once you've reached cruising speed, unless you are exceptionally weak.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Change gears down. It's called engine braking.
This is a common misconception.
Engine braking means letting the engine slow down, and thus the vehicle slowing down with it. You only need to change gears as well to stop the engine from stalling.
Aggressively shifting down to a lower gear too early just wears out your gearbox, and if done too harshly can lock your wheels and cause a crash.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
You tow them with the drive wheels off the ground.
"For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert"
The butterfly valve you describe is known as a positive air shutoff. They are required on diesel vehicles operating in areas where there is a potential for a combustible atmosphere (for example natural gas plants). I'm considering one, though with install they are very expensive to have just in case of a relatively unlikely failure. probably cheaper to just risk it. (the failure mode could involve a destroyed engine, but how many vehicles would I go through before likely running in to the failure?)
Have gnu, will travel.
... is John Broder. In his hands, this car would never have gotten out of the parking lot, let alone reached 125mph.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Story as told to friends later: "I was zooming along and got caught—police started chasing me. So I called for help and said the car started speeding when I tried to stop. They decided to give me an escort instead of arresting me. But then I ran out of fuel, so I steered it off into the ditch to make it look like I was out of control. I disappeared before they finished examing the car for defects. Hahahahaha!"
I think the only sensible precaution everyone should take is to have a fuel cut off switch installed on your vehicle. It costs anywhere from $50-$100 USD and is not only a practical theft preventative, but it would solve this problem entirely. I would mention that the person installing the cut off, if he knows his stuff, will ask you the year of the vehicle, and if it's relatively new (~2000+), tell you it has sufficient anti-theft security. Just insist it's for other security considerations or as an auxiliary precaution to what comes standard.
As motor vehicles continue to move toward more computer-centric controls, this should be mandatory, and be a factory default option.
Similar events like the one in this article have made me take this precaution.
Turn ignition off. I've had my car's ECU fail and caused full throttle. Shut engine off. Brake and keep pressure on brakes until stopped to avoid using all the vacuum remaining. Easy.
Alternatively, take out of gear and let the engine blow up. Certainly better than hitting another vehicle head on at 125mph.
Fuckin' retard he was. Oh wait, they did say France.
Lots of things can cause seizures, and some of them can be treated. Where I live, a person can get a license if a doctor certifies that they have not had a seizure for a year.
It is a sad comment about our country that a driver's license is so essential that we tolerate more than 30,000 traffic fatalities each year. Seizures are a minor part of that bigger problem.
Don't mess with The Phone Company. Piss them off and you'll be using two tin cans and a piece of string.
Are you in the United States? I am, in Tennessee as a matter of fact. We have several things, epilepsy among them, that can bar you from driving as you mentioned. The "reportable condition" is actually SELF reported. If I don't tell the DMV that I have epilepsy then there isn't really any way for them to find out. Now I agree 100% that someone who has seizures or passes out at random should not be driving. I personally think, and this will be quite unpopular, that if you have any kind of handicap that renders you unable to drive the vehicle as manufactured then you shouldn't be driving at all. However, this is America. We don't think about the welfare of others for the most part; it's all about individual freedoms. Even though us more rational folks know that driving is a priviledge and not a right, most don't agree. Why would they want to be singled out and denied their god-given right to drive which, because of our lack of public transport, would severely hamper thier ability to even have a job. Not everyone with epilepsy is on disability so many have to keep working. Outside of the big cities like New York, no car pretty much means no job. Before anyone can try and deflect blame onto the government for this, we would have to have multiple agencies talking to one another or all data in one location like a National ID. As we have seen on /. in the past that idea didn't go over too well for the obvious privacy implications. However events like this will have to be addressed simply due to the fact that your right to privacy might infringe on my right to live should you seize and strike me or my property. It's not an easy problem to fix and will not be remedied overnight in any case. Anyway you should redirect your outrage to another area.
That's why us engineer's have to engineer out "stupidity" as best as possible because the screwed up legal system and ineffectual political climate don't respond to problems fast enough so we basically have to cobble together some kind of hack to cover our asses. The thing is, no matter how hard we try we just can't engineer out stupid. If I made an electrical outlet that was a solid 6" of nonconductive ceramic with no holes(basically not an outlet) some jackass(or a kid) is STILL gonna figure out how to jam a fork into it and electrocute themselves. These drive-by-wire systems are the result of this. If you recall the Ford Explorer rollover thing several years ago, people called on the goverment to DO SOMETHING (TM) to save us from the ever so dangerous machines that these greedy profit driven corps were churning out. In response, the goverment somewhere around 2006ish mandated that all vehicles have anti-lock brakes, traction control, and for SUV's, Electronic Stability Control. To make these vehicles conform to those laws, auto engineers pretty much had to take away actual control from the driver. How exactly is traction control supposed to cut throttle when you've got the pedal jammed to the floor? Remove the cable or hard linkage, that's how. The side effect you are seeing now is vehicles that won't shut off, go into neutral, or stop when you command them to and there are no more manual backups to save you. I agree with several posters that the easiest fix would be a nice big old E-Stop button on the dash somewhere that directly cuts computer power when depressed. No relays, no microprocessors, or anything like that. A mechanical button in series with the power line from the fuse box that cannot refuse to operate (barring mechanical failure that is). And going back to my previous point, some idiot is still gonna figure out how to make that button not work when they need it. An engineer's job is never done!
I don't know about France particularly, but some jurisdictions issue licenses in some such cases because the epilepsy is either controlled by medicine, otherwise irrelevant to driving (e.g., seizures only while asleep), or simply so rare (epilepsy simply means "has had more than one seizure, ever") that it would be overboard to deny a license. Extra restrictions (e.g., reduced term of license) and/or requirements (e.g., medical supervision) are common, as might be expected.
1 - Hazard lights on ; horn blaring as often as possible.
2 - clutch down, out of gear. (I assume that you can do something similar in an automatic, though with 2 days of driving one in total out of 25 years, I'm not 100% certain. For sure it can be forced it into gear 2 or 1, because I've done that by accident. "Bye bye" to speed.)
3 - more horn and hazards
4 - handbrake as possible in between steering.
5 - come to a halt.
6 - kick car repeatedly as the engine revs itself to destruction.
FTFA : "his Renault Laguna, which is adapted for disabled drivers, "
OK, I take a lot of it back. Botched adaptation I suppose could do something like this. But what disabled-adapted vehicles I've seen in the past have also had the original controls accessible. It's not impossible, I suppose, that the adaptation would have rendered the control procedure above difficult or impossible, but then I'd still consider that a dangerously botched adaptation - at the design stage.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
I have a friend who delivers high cost cars. He accepted one for delivery, drove out of EU manufacturer's works and while driving was told by phone to keep driving at a fixed speed and return to works and under no circumstances to brake (!) or make an attempt to try to stop, as he had been sent out of works without a "key" inside car. Note "inside car or in close proximity to car". Key was a fob for your pocket, the works inspector had it so car started and my friend could drive many miles without a key in the car.. Brake could only be used when he was back inside works track.
He was glad he was a well trained professional driver but say it was a ride he will never forget
Impressed, I am glad I have not got toe wealth to get that expensive make of car.
With this 'proximity key' as next technology, the ideas here about stopping by key use to neutral will soon be history.
The disabled car may have had the same type of proximity key fitted with the modifications made to it.
Regards Eion MacDonald
I call bullshit...~~ can't figure out how to select neutral or at least turn off the key? No way.
my thoughts exactly
What, the clutch wasn't working (manual) or the transmission wouldn't goto neutral? Admittedly, you'd smoke the engine, but better the engine than yourself.
RTFA. No? Didn't think so.
In capitalist USA corporations control the government.
It seems everyone here has forgotten about power steering. I see numerous references to "Steering Lock", however that's a totally different system. In most cars, when the car is off, the steering column itself will lock to prevent any turning of the wheel at all. This is a theft deterrent feature. Sometimes when the car is off you might be able to turn it left/right once or twice before it locks. THEN you have Power Steering, which is either hydraulic or electric. Either way, the car needs to be on for it to function. Hydraulic required a pump to be active, and electric is pure electrical motor assist. Hydraulic systems will still operate for a few turns once the car is turned off until pressure is lost due to lack of the pump running, electric power steering will cut out as soon as power is lost. The reason why you wouldn't want to just *TURN OFF* the car at 125mph would be you would lose power steering and lose total control of the vehicle. Let alone you would also most likely lose power brakes, and make it *MUCH* harder to stop. Essentially turning your car into a speeding bullet in which you have little to no ability to turn or brake. This is why it's Neutral only or bust, so you won't end up flipping your car. This same thing happened to me about 8-9 years ago .I was actually bringing my elderly grandmother back from visiting a relative, coming down a hill with a 7% grade that's a slow left hand turn for over half mile to 3/4 mile. It was my parents car, automatic. To save on the brakes I normally would downshift from "Drive" to "3" (It was a 4 speed auto and had gear selection of 3, 2, 1, or D). This is normal practice for cars. However in the shift, the onboard computer had a brain fart and the car shut off. I had no power brakes, no power steering, going down a 7% grade left hand turn. The only way to restart the car would be to pop it into Neutral and restart. The shifter was on the column, and at the time I had to use both hands with excessive force to keep the wheel turned to prevent smashing into the side of the road, not a option. I kept as calm as possible and managed to get to the bottom of the hill and managed to slam the brakes hard enough (pressing down as hard as i could for 30-40 seconds) to slow down enough to pull over and stop the car.
Come to find out the car had shut off on my parents like that once before, and once after this incident. A little after the 3rd time we got notice of a recall to reflash the onboard computer because of the very specifc problem where certain conditions it would cause the car to shut off. After the reflash, it did it one more time, and a few months later there was another recall stating the first recall didn't completely solve the problem. Fortunately we had already ditched the car. (2001 Mazda Tribute, same as Ford Escape if anyone is wondering).
So the man flying into the ditch my bet is the car running out of gas. As it sputtered, full power remained so he had access to power steering and brakes, and was able to slow down *SOME* from 125mph. When the cars engine finally shut off somewhere between 0mph-125mph he lost power brakes and steering, and was unable to control the car and ended up going off the road into a ditch, fortunately at a slow enough speed where he didn't sustain as much damage as he would have had it been 125mph.
If my car was moving at 125mph I don't think I'd want to get out. Being trapped within would not really be a pertinent part of the equation.