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.'"

Comments

Awesome

[Laxori666]

Glad nobody got hurt.

Re:Awesome

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

The man had to visit BELGIUM.

And yet, you claim that no one was hurt!

Re:Awesome

[amicusNYCL]

The article says that while he was unhurt, he did suffer two epileptic seizures. Imagine going through that, twice, at 125mph.

Re:Awesome

[Darfeld]

The man should sell his story to Hoolywood. They might had some explosion there and then, but whatever...

Re:Awesome

[sconeu]

You can't say that here!!! This isn't a Serious Screenplay!

Re:Awesome

[bipbop]

Note that seizures range from symptoms as minor as deja vu or a brief lapse in awareness (that you might not even know you had) to full-body thrashing and flailing with the potential for both physical and mental injury.

The article doesn't specify what he went through. My guess is that it was toward the middle of the spectrum: too small, and he might not have even been aware he had a seizure; too large, and he probably wouldn't have survived the ordeal.

(Other people have already brought up the possibility that the seizures were responsible for the problem, so I'll leave it at that.)

Re:Awesome

[CrimsonAvenger]

The article says that while he was unhurt, he did suffer two epileptic seizures.

So, why does France issue Driver's Licenses to people subject to epileptic seizures?

Re:Awesome

[JoelKatz]

So what? Driving at 125 miles per hour could have killed him -- worrying about the engine or the brakes is idiotic. And the brakes won't catch fire decelerating you from 125 to 0 just once after the transmission is in neutral. He should have shifted into neutral as soon as he realized he couldn't keep the engine from accelerating the car beyond where he wanted it to be.

Re:Awesome

[Gription]

I call bullshit...
125mph maximum speed so he was driving for at least an hour...

In one hour you can't figure out how to select neutral or at least turn off the key? No way.

Re:Awesome

[methano]

I wonder why on earth, when he finally ran out of gas, did he have to run into a ditch. I tend to agree with Gription. I'm gonna call BS on this story, too.

Re:Awesome

[WCLPeter]

The man should sell his story to Hoolywood.

Forget Hollywood, Bollywood is where its at!

Gun fire, explosions, and the totally implausible "I can't believe no one died and the car is still going" car flips all while the dialogue from the last hour is retold through a deeply moving song and dance number. Its a plucky love story about the rookie cop, who thinks she's plain and boring despite being portrayed by one of the hottest actresses in India, falling in love with the nerdy nice guy who's down on his looks, despite being played by one of the hottest actors in India, who just can't get his car to stop.

The only thing standing between them and their love, outside of the racing car, are the bumbling bank robbers who think the procession of speeding vehicles quickly gaining on them are actually trying to arrest them. For laughs they'll have the cars speed through a bus terminal and across the decks of cruise ships while continuously cutting to reaction shots of a guy who looks a lot like Dennis Hopper.

Re:Awesome

[horza]

Not sure about the States, but turning off the key in Europe and you would be worried about triggering the steering lock. Which means you can no longer turn the wheel. If it's a manual then going into neutral would be a no-brainer. In Europe we rarely use neutral in an automatic, it's either drive or park, so in panic mode I can see somebody not wanting to use a control they've never used before. Stupid? Yes. Believable? Just about.

Phillip.

Re:Awesome

[Mr. Slippery]

In one hour you can't figure out how to select neutral or at least turn off the key? No way.

From TFA: "...after his Renault Laguna, which is adapted for disabled drivers...A Renault technician had been on the phone with police throughout the chase trying to help but couldn't come up with a solution."

Apparently, whatever adaptation was done did not include the ability to put the car into neutral (or that also malfunctioned). If the company couldn't figure out how to stop the car, don't blame the driver.

Re:Awesome

[slack_justyb]

The transmission is computer controlled. Trying to move it to anything is ignored if it doesn't make sense to the system. In fact that is the key thing, you have a misbehaving computer, however, you have to reason with this crazy machine to get anything to happen, which usually it will tell you, you are the one in the wrong here, hence why a lot of sane sounding things wouldn't work in this case. If the system was completely wonked, there isn't a thing a person could do that this system would respond to, such as turning off or going into a different gear or lack of gear.

It's like your car is saying, "I'm sorry Dave, I'm too busy pushing the accelerator to process your request to shift into neutral, please try again later."

Going into neutral with the gas pedal down is going to trigger an ignore signal from the system and thus the request to switch into neutral will not be dispatched to the transmission. Likewise with ignitions, having forward motion in a non-collision situation will have any request to disengage the engine ignored. Heck, some electronic systems won't care. If the car isn't stopped, collision or not, the system may very well ignore any request to disengage the engine.

The problem is that a lot of these drive by wire systems make a lot of bad assumptions about things and there really isn't a standard guide book on what to make sure does and does not happen, so it varies pretty wildly between systems. Some cars will allow you to switch to neutral, and neutral alone, while the gas pedal is down (never mind that the system is having a fault on requests to accelerate.) Some cars will let you burn through the break pads. The parking brake is always manual, so you'd figure someone would put a kill switch in there. Nope, pulling on the parking brake with the accelerator stuck will just get you some nice brake dust blowing out of your wheels. There are a ton of WTF thinking that goes into some of the programming of these systems.

Stuck accelerators can be cause by any number of faults, some of those faults are checked, some not. The ones that are checked, can try resets or allow you to stop the car safely. The ones that get missed cause this kind of crap where, no matter what you do, your car is now programmed to go as fast as it can in a forward motion and getting under the hood and pulling the plug to the system for a hard reset is the only solution.

There is a serious need for someone to come up with logical standard operating procedures for these types of systems. Airplane manufactures do it for their fly by wire systems so that the pilot always stays in control, even when the system would rather beg to differ on the matter. I haven't the foggiest idea on why this kind of thing eludes car makers.

Re:Awesome

[dwywit]

Don't know about the USA, but in Oz I've never seen anything other than Off/steering lock, then accessories, then on/run, then start. Turning the key from ON to Accessories will not lock the steering. Sometimes the steering won't lock until the key is physically removed from the barrel.

Re:Awesome

[Prof.Phreak]

To get more actors into movie, they could set story on a bus... that just cannot go below 55mph... or something.

Re:Awesome

[garyebickford]

Airplane manufactures do it for their fly by wire systems so that the pilot always stays in control, even when the system would rather beg to differ on the matter.

If I recall correctly, this corresponds to somewhat of a philosophic difference between Airbus and Boeing. From what I read a few years ago, Airbus absolutely limits what the pilot can do - he/she can not make the plane do something the computer doesn't approve of. Boeing, assumes the pilot knows best, and allows the pilot to 'override' the system (do things with the controls that seem unwise to the computer). Boeing's POV is that the computer may be wrong, and/or the situation may not be one the computer is ready for.

I did a bit of Googling 'airbus and boeing philosophy' and found many interesting links. Boeing still insists on classic controls, which require the pilot to act like a pilot instead of automating everything (even though it's automated). And the autopilot automatically disengages as soon as the pilot takes the controls. Airbus philosophy is to automate everything to avoid human error - but slashdotters generally know that computers are only as smart as their programs, and are _never_ as adaptable as their programmers.

Re:Awesome

[dr_dank]

*puts on sunglasses*

Because they deserve a fair shake.

Re:Awesome

[MrNiCeGUi]

I'm from Europe and in all the cars I've owned or driven, which were mostly manual, turning off the key never engages the steering lock. The steering lock is engaged only when you remove the key.

That said, the car being a Renault Laguna and presumably a rather recent one it most likely comes with Renault's keycard ignition. Basically the key looks like a fatter credit card, and it goes into a slot. The car starts by pressing a Start button. In that case, the card is blocked inside the slot while the car is in motion, so it can't be removed at all.

Re:Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

The Airbus FBW system is a little bit more complicated than that. It has different "laws" which it enters when it detects a problem or broken sensor that it cannot handle and thus gives the pilot more authority since unlike your biased assumption, Airbus too expects situations that the computer cannot handle or adapt to to occur. Air France 447 is of course an example of how the pilots in that situation failed to earn their money when they were supposed to handle the situation - even though one of them says out loud "alternate law", the least experienced one keeps pulling up so that the aircraft stalls. He was clearly still thinking that the computer would sort it out even though stall protection is one of the protections disabled in alternate law and he should've remembered that.

Pilots could also easily force the computer out of normal law by switching off the "flight augmentation computer", which can be done with a switch in the overhead panel. However, either because pilots prefer to have the protections in an emergency or because intentionally switching to alternate law is not part of any procedure, they don't do it.

And finally, both Boeing and Airbus allow the pilot to disable the autopilot at any time but I'm not sure whether you fully understand the difference between FBW and autopilots.

Re:Awesome

[Arrepiadd]

He should have shifted into neutral as soon as he realized he couldn't keep the engine from accelerating the car beyond where he wanted it to be.

One acronym for you: RTFA.

I'll give you some of the content. Warning, there's some spoilers:
"Lecerf has filed a legal complaint after his Renault Laguna, which is adapted for disabled drivers, (...) and the brakes failed"
"A Renault technician had been on the phone with police throughout the chase trying to help but couldn't come up with a solution."

So yeah, he should have done all that... and obviously in a one hour run over the highway, with police involved, no one came up with that idea. Why aren't you a French policeman... everything would have been so different!

Re:Awesome

[Alioth]

Even so, the safety record of Airbus and Boeing is comparable, so the evidence is that both approaches are just as valid.

Re:Awesome

[Eunuchswear]

If I recall correctly, this corresponds to somewhat of a philosophic difference between Airbus and Boeing. From what I read a few years ago, Airbus absolutely limits what the pilot can do - he/she can not make the plane do something the computer doesn't approve of. Boeing, assumes the pilot knows best, and allows the pilot to 'override' the system (do things with the controls that seem unwise to the computer). Boeing's POV is that the computer may be wrong, and/or the situation may not be one the computer is ready for.

Urban legend (or Boeing propaganda if you are a cynic).

In "normal law" Airbus will prevent the pilot from doing some stupid things, but when the shit hits the fan he can do what the hell he wants.

Re:Awesome

[painandgreed]

I suppose it never occured to him to take the car out of gear??

I mean, is there such a thing as a car without Neutral?

In TFA, it points out that the car was modified for a disabled driver. Could be that the entire thing including changing gears was controlled by a computer or other electronic device with a simple input for use by a disabled person, but it was on the fritz and the usual controls were either unreachable due to disability or no longer functioned due to modification.

It's called the key

[Sycraft-fu]

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.

Re: It's called the key

[Anonymous Coward]

Thus engaging the steering wheel lock.

Re:It's called the key

[kruach aum]

"Have you tried turning it off and on again?"

Re:It's called the key

[PPH]

The car in question was an automatic, so no neutral.

Since when? The N in PRNDL stands for neutral.

Re:It's called the key

[TriezGamer]

Handbrake at those speeds would either be useless, or suicidal. Even pulling the handbrake at lower speeds can be extremely dangerous.

Re:It's called the key

[Anonymous Coward]

Article says "A Renault technician had been on the phone with police throughout the chase trying to help but couldn't come up with a solution." I'm pretty sure that those two options were tried.

Re:It's called the key

[Anonymous Coward]

The car was modified with disabled-driver controls. It's unclear what options he had available to regain control.

Re:It's called the key

[compro01]

Nope, there's no conventional key. The ignition is entirely computerized. The "key" is a card you stick in a slot and you start (and stop) the engine by pressing a button. Here's the car's dashboard. The thing with the red fob is the "key".

http://www.autotesty.com.pl/fotki/renault/laguna3_gt_20dci_177km/renault_laguna3_20dci_177km_gt_15.jpg

Re: It's called the key

[X0563511]

My car has:
OFF, ACC, ON, START

The engine starts on START, obviously. The key sits at ON while driving. If I drop it down to ACC, the engine dies but most things stay powered. The wheel does not lock.

The wheel only locks when I move the key to the OFF position, and to do that I have to be in park or neutral (or use some kind of poking implement to depress the shift-lock override, which also lets me do Bad Things like drop it straight into park from drive.

Every car with a key that I've ever seen has the same configuration.

Re:It's called the key

[Jane Q. Public]

"The brake pedal causing the car to accelerate seems highly unlikely without some major hacking,"

TFA states that the driver was "disabled", so presumably his car was equipped with hand controls. Yes, that's a major hack.

Re:It's called the key

[LinuxIsGarbage]

"You're thinking of an old-fashioned car, like the Model T. Today's cars don't do that, grandpa. Computer controlled."

B.S.

I don't know about Renault, but in the U.S. all gasoline cars that I know of have an ignition switch that literally shuts off electrical power to the cylinders, rendering them incapable of firing. This is regardless of whether they are computer controlled. (That's what "ignition switch" means.)

If any computer controlled cars lack this feature, it should be added back in, yesterday.

Even "push to start" cars act like ATX power supplies. If you hold down the power button for a few seconds it will force a poweroff.

Surely in an area with predominantly manual transmissions, neutral / declutch would come to mind?

Re:It's called the key

[PPH]

"A Renault technician had been on the phone with police throughout the chase trying to help but couldn't come up with a solution."

Tell him to drive it to Belgium and wreck it there.

Re:It's called the key

[camperdave]

I've yet to see a car without a transmission. Dropping into neutral is the universal procedure for a runaway engine.

Re:It's called the key

[grnbrg]

Not the case. I've got one of the fancy new keyless ignition vehicles, and I've tested this.

With the engine running, and with forward motion, three (maybe four) presses in quick succession or pressing and holding the the ignition switch for 2-3 seconds will kill the engine. You need to shift into park and press the brake to start again.

I thought it was interesting that there were two paths that would do this, both of which are a reasonably likely response in a panic situation -- tap the button a zillion times, or try to mash it into the engine compartment.

2009 Nissan Cube, if you care. Or if you don't.

grnbrg.

Re:It's called the key

[GiganticLyingMouth]

From the article: "A Renault technician had been on the phone with police throughout the chase trying to help but couldn't come up with a solution." Of course I can't say with 100% certainty, but I'm guessing the Renault technician would have thought of all of your proposed solutions and more. It's important to note that his car had been "adapted for disabled drivers", which likely played some role in its malfunction, so conventional wisdom about cars may not be as applicable, depending on the modifications made. Also, he likely has various disabilities, given that his car is for disabled drivers, and that he "had two epileptic seizures" during the drive, so it's likely not necessarily a matter of him failing "to understand his vehicle's operation" as you say, so much as him being physically and/or mentally unable to take action. One last interesting note from the article: "it wasn't the first time his speed dial had jammed but that Renault had looked at the car and assured him that it was fine." That's probably where the legal complaint comes into play

Re: It's called the key

[amicusNYCL]

This car doesn't have a "key", it has a button that says "Start/Stop".

Re:It's called the key

[roc97007]

According to TFA, the car was "adapted for disabled drivers" and later on it talks about a "speed dial" which had given him problems before. So, it looks like it didn't have the controls we normally think a car should have.

Interesting about the ignition nevertheless. I'm not sure how they work

Re:It's called the key

[Anonymous Coward]

Says who? Have you ever tried it? My car won't allow me to shift into neutral when I'm at highway speeds. I can only move it into that stupid manual-shift mode, where the computer still won't let me downshift if it would result in redlining the engine.

Re:It's called the key

[PhotoJim]

This sort of event is convincing me even more that I want three pedals in my car. Press the clutch and your problem is solved. No electronics can fail because the clutch in a manual transmission car is controlled by you, with your foot, mechanically.

Re:It's called the key

[compro01]

Assuming the shifter actually physically does something rather than being connected to a drive-by-wire system that isn't responding to your commands.

Re:It's called the key

[Americano]

I'm sure it never occurred to the Renault technician to tell the man, "Press the stop button to shut down your engine."

And everybody knows that pressing a labeled button ALWAYS causes the malfunctioning computer connected to the button to take appropriate action.

By Jove, you've solved the case!

Re:It's called the key

[ls671]

I would recommend against this practice mainly for security reasons. You may suddenly need to accelerate to avoid an accident.

It is generally accepted that it is otherwise useless anyway. Google for:

should i shift in neutral going down hill

Re:It's called the key

[schnell]

Handbrake as well would have worked surely?

Only if he was ripping DVDs while he was driving.

Re:It's called the key

[HuntingHades]

The article mentions he's epileptic and the car is modified for disabled drivers. I'm guessing its got an automatic transmission. When it mentioned he had two seizures during the situation, I'm actually wondering if he was having a seizure and the whole time and depressing the accelerator without even realizing it.

Re:It's called the key

[Chuckstar]

Uses less gas to stay in gear and shut off fuel to the engine. This is because it doesn't merely shut off fuel to the engine, it also opens all the valves. This reduces engine drag down to a pretty low level. So your choices for coasting are (i) coast in gear with minimal engine drag or (ii) coast out of gear with zero engine drag, but gas going to the engine to keep it spinning. The first option wastes less energy overall.

Re:It's called the key

[omegadraconis]

Found another story about this indecent. It indicates that "...which the Weeknotes was customized in light of Lecerf's epilepsy, with the gas and brake controls moved to the steering wheel)." from USA today http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2013/02/14/newser-wild-ride-france-drive/1919139/. The Manual (Found at http://www.globalcars.com.au/site/uploads/Renault_Laguna_ENG.pdf) does indicate that the automated version has an Neutral gear. It also indicates that shifting to neutral and then pressing the ignition should stop the engine. There is also a park for the automatics... I suppose if they moved the gas and brake they may have moved the gear-shift (thought it's not stated). If that was the case and the disability controls were malfunctioning (likely) then your screwed. Of course you could throw the keys out the window From the manual, page 2.5 titled "Starting/STOPPING THE ENGINE (continued)". "If the card is no longer in the passenger compartment when you try to switch the engine off, the message “card absentlong press” appears on the instrument panel: press button 1 for longer than two seconds"

Re:It's called the key

[dgatwood]

I think it is way past time for us (as in every country on Earth) to pass laws that ban any further manufacture of vehicles that lack a mechanical key switch and mandate that any existing vehicles be modified by the manufacturer to comply with that law within six months, or else those vehicles are no longer allowed to be driven on public roads.

This isn't the first or even the second time this has happened. This is at least the third time I've seen a story about such a runaway vehicle. It is just not acceptable for such a severe safety problem to occur that many times without the manufacturers being forced to design an actual, provable fix, and by provable, I do not mean "We fixed the software bug that caused it to happen in this particular instance".

As long as you have a computer in complete control over the operation of a vehicle, from the electronic transmission and brakes to the throttle control, a failsafe kill switch within easy reach of the driver should be mandatory, by law. Without the ability to kill the computer if it malfunctions, your vehicle is fundamentally unsafe, period, and should never have been allowed on the road in the first place.

Unfortunately, knowing our lawmakers in the U.S. and how badly they're in the pockets of industry, such regulations won't happen until the first time somebody dies in one of these situations, and maybe not even then. Perhaps France will do better.

Re:It's called the key

[silanea]

TFS says the issues started at 60 mph. Even at that speed the slightest bump on the rail, a bar sticking out a bit, anything really would either rip half the car to shreds or send it hurling across the motorway. Doing it at 125? Only if you have a death wish.

Re:It's called the key

[PRMan]

Christ, it's spelled "BRAKE".

He already knows that, seeing that he's omniscient and all. Still, I hear he's a swell guy, so he probably won't say anything...

Re:It's called the key

[Githaron]

The average person does not know how to do that safely.

Re:It's called the key

[dwywit]

Not if you ease it on. Its other name is "emergency brake". I don't know much about engine management computers, but cruise control in my car shuts off from a number of different triggers - use the brakes, exceed speed parameters (high OR low), etc - as well as just pressing the button to shut it off. Surely there'd be more than one trigger for an electronic throttle to shut down, and using the emergency brake should be number 1 or 2 on the priority list.

Re:It's called the key

[SomePgmr]

Uh, guys... we can probably stop trying to troubleshoot with all the obvious stuff like turning the car off, shifting to neutral, parking brake, etc.

From the article:

A Renault technician had been on the phone with police throughout the chase trying to help but couldn't come up with a solution.

Re:It's called the key

[Totenglocke]

No, you're thinking of the throttle. I'm unable to find mention of any car with a drive-by-wire clutch.

Re:It's called the key

[QuesarVII]

Not all cars have a kill switch you can just shut things down.

And that's the problem right there then.

Re:It's called the key

[hduff]

Uh, guys... we can probably stop trying to troubleshoot with all the obvious stuff like turning the car off, shifting to neutral, parking brake, etc.

From the article:

A Renault technician had been on the phone with police throughout the chase trying to help but couldn't come up with a solution.

Did they think to ask the car to surrender? /oblig

Re:It's called the key

[hawguy]

I call BS.
You can't get a car inspected in my state(TX) if it doesn't have a kill switch. They will flunk you right then and there if your key being turned off doesn't turn everything except accessories off. It's the first thing they check, turn car off then on, if they can't do that cycle you fail inspection.
Thanks to my Saturn ION 2007 for that...stupid ignition cylinder breaks and doesn't let you turn the car off.

Many newer cars don't need a key to start it - as long as your key is somewhere in or near the car, you can just press a button to start the car. And press a button to shut it off. This will work find under normal conditions (like your DMV inspection), but if the car computer ignores the "turn off car" button press while you're driving at speed, there's no way to force the car to turn off.

Maybe fly-by-wire cars need a failsafe physical switch that manually cuts power to the ignition system or fuel injector pump.

Re:It's called the key

[PAjamian]

Even on older cars the default state of the clutch is engaged. Most cars have a hydrolic clutch which can fail due to a burst hose or failed seal, etc. Other cars have a manual clutch which is basically just a cable that can fail from fatigue (the clutch cable breaks). In either of these cases if the clutch fails it is left *engaged* which means that you cannot release it. The only case of a clutch failing and not leaving the engine engaged is when the clutch plate itself is worn out and then you get what is known as the "clutch slipping" (and eventually not engaging at all).

Re:It's called the key

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually that's not entirely true. I do a lot of high speed driving (on closed road courses in racecars) and have been in many similar situations. A driver can definitely come to a controlled stop from ~60 (or even a bit higher, although 125 is stretching it) by scraping into most common metal or concrete barriers. It's certainly feasible if you're calm, do it intentionally, understand what's going on, and steer appropriately. However, in this particular scenario there were probably other mitigating factors, even if 125mph was an acceptable speed against the barriers in question:

A) If the accelerator signal was actually stuck on, and the brake signal dysfunctional (as appears to be the case according to TFA), you could shed some speed that way, but eventually you'd get slow enough that the car's torque would overcome the remaining friction and you'd just be grinding along at a constant speed. If that speed were ~25mph or less, it might've been worth trying to jump out of the car at that point (if the barrier was on the passenger side), but if it were higher you'd just be making your situation worse. You could try to turn into it a bit harder at that point to increase friction, and I'd guess the first fallout would be blown front tires, which definitely puts further vehicle control in doubt and the engine's still trying to go all out at that point...

B) If the driver wasn't in his right frame of mind and a driver of decent skill (for normal road drivers), he could've freaked out in such a situation and made matters worse by bouncing off or turning in to sharp, either of which would lead to the car spinning and possibly flipping.

But really, I still think there's something wrong with the facts in the article, they just don't jive. I can understand this isn't a Toyota (totally the fault of deranged consumers) situation, due to the fact that the car was modified with some assistive gas/brake inputs for the disabled that may have gone crazy and actually caused the gas/brake behavior described, but...

What I can't understand is how the owner, the police, and the supposed Renault Engineer (likely it was some local mechanic the cops called, and likely there was miscommunication involved? I don't know...) couldn't figure out how to turn off the engine. A car can definitely be safely stopped on a regular road with the engine off, although it will take a while to slow down without brakes. I suspect one fact that must be missing from TFA is that the driver was the disabled person the system was installed for and couldn't operate the normal controls of the car, but there still should've been a way to shut that car down. Either way, the mfg/installer of the assistive device is probably the primary culprit here, not Renault or all drive-by-wire cars in general.

Re:It's called the key

[rachit]

Not all cars have a kill switch you can just shut things down.

Only if it is a legitimate acceleration. Then, the car has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.

Re:It's called the key

[dryeo]

The car was modified for a disability. I don't know how but I had a friend who was paraplegic so had hand control, push for throttle, pull for brake. The hand controls may be setup in such a way that it is possible a malfunction has the brake operating the throttle.

Re:It's called the key

[SpinyManiac]

What TFA is missing is that Renault Lagunas don't have an ignition key, they have an electronic card and a start button.

From what other posters are saying, it seems there's no way to turn the engine off while the vehicle is moving. I can see Renault getting some flak for that design decision, if it's true.

Car was adapted with controls for disabled people

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

I've yet to encounter an automatic with no neutral

[Sycraft-fu]

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.

Missing Details...

[icebike]

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.

Re:Missing Details...

[innocent_white_lamb]

Why is a man who suffers from epilepsy being allowed to drive in the first place?

Epilepsy is a "reportable condition" here, along with some other medical conditions that can lead to blackouts and/or disorientation. If you are diagnosed with something like that, your drivers license is revoked and you're not allowed to drive at all.

Re:Missing Details...

[icebike]

Well, if you've seen drivers in Paris, Epilepsy would seem to be something of the norm.

Re:Missing Details...

[idontgno]

Well, if you've seen drivers in Paris, Epilepsy would seem to be something of an improvement.

FTFY.

Re:Missing Details...

[hey!]

Well, I guess because not everything called "epilepsy" acts identically. It's conceivable to me at least that while some people who are diagnosed with "epilepsy" cannot drive a car safely, others can.

I know someone who has an "epilepsy" diagnosis but no visible symptoms. She can be on the EEG machine and talking with her doctor while the machine is saying she is having a seizure. She wouldn't even know she had "epilepsy" if she hadn't volunteered to be a subject for a research project.

Really scary

[K. S. Kyosuke]

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.

NOT STOCK

[markdavis]

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.

Re:Neutral Gear

[mpk23]

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.

Neutral nearly caused my engine to jump out of the hood when I had the same thing happen, dangerously high rpms at no load... Turning off the engine worked like a charm, and I found a little flak trapped under the cable. Perhaps there is some reason you can't turn off a Laguna?

Re:Remove keys from ignition?

[X0563511]

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.

Re:Police Jurisdiction

[_Shad0w_]

The Schengen Area agreement also contains rules concerning police crossing international borders when in pursuit of someone; I believe they keep going, but hand over to local police on the fly.

For all your suggested solutions...

[Svartormr]

...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.

Some observations

[Okian Warrior]

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.

Low Battery

[Anonymous Coward]

If he was only driving a Tesla Model S he would have ran out of fuel in no time.

Damn you fossil fuel vehicles!

His driving license was revoked since 2004

[AwaxSlashdot]

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.

RTFA

[dutchwhizzman]

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.