If the brakes were so old that they weren't functioning, then they'd be squealing horribly against their wear indicatiors and the CHP officer should have turned right back around and declined the loaner. The length of time this occurred is somewhat irrelevant other than to indict the officer's judgement. This should have lasted no more than a few seconds to prevent the car from attaining triple digit speeds and allowing passenger panic to get out of hand.
I have had this happen in an old vehicle in the middle of a moderate speed curve with someone directly in front of me, and I got the car under control in a few seconds without hitting the other car. lf this had happened to me on a busy freeway, and I wasn't having a mental fog day, by the time the car was going 10 miles an hour faster than I intended or I was nearing the car in front of me, I would have in rapid succession (which is pretty much how it happened to me previously) stepped very firmly on the brake pedal, attempted to shift into neutral, stabbed at the ignition button and if it didn't turn off press and hold, and allow the car to hit the person in front of me if the speed differential was still not too great and nothing I was doing was working, or alternatively head for something like a barrier or median to help slow the car down. My parents have been hit by a car on the freeway in similar circumstance where the steering column of the other car broke, and the damage was limited.
He either had a bad day, or didn't handle stressful situations very well and it unfortunately got the better of his family.
You're right about the 3 seconds, sorry. It has been since this was a hot story that I looked it up in the owner's manual, and apparently I dropped a second along the way.
But not as much better as the engine in the case of the car chosen by C&D. The Roush Mustang took 80 more feet to stop from 70 mph throttle closed vs open. The Toyota Camry took only 16 more feet to stop. Since Lexuses are performance luxury cars, they have pretty good brakes comparatively.
http://www.caranddriver.com/features/how-to-deal-with-unintended-acceleration
They seem to work. Our 1983 Eldorado had 2 presses worth of the brake pedal, our 1979 Scout did when it was working correctly, our 1990 and 1995 Nissan Maxima, our 1994 and 1999 Nissan Altima, my 2001 Nissan Pathfinder, all had 2 power assisted presses of the brake pedal after the car was off. Here is one for a domestic car, I think it is exactly the one used on an 83 Eldorado. I'm not sure what the foreign car reserviors look like
http://www.finditparts.com/products/596770/dorman-47077?gclid=CIfbw6Tosq8CFS2htgodeW_lhA
No, it is 2 seconds, and the car turns off. There has been no reliable and verified reports that the car fails to turn off after a 2 second push on the button.
A car with a faulty o2 sensor should recognize the out of limits signal and go from closed loop mode to open loop mode, meaning the o2 sensor isn't necessary, and it will run fine, except have worse emissions, while turning on your emissions light.
It wasn't just that you had run out of vacuum. Had the brakes been fresh and cool with no vacuum assist you would have probably stopped fine too. After 4 high speed hard presses, the pads had heated up to over 1000dF and were outgassing. Most production cars do not have vented pads. The gas builds up between the rotor and pad and prevents full contact, meaning the pads no longer have enough friction to stop the car.
Not 3, not 4, not 5, or 10. Two seconds is the correct answer and it will turn the engine off. It has been published several places and it is in the owner's manual.
Car and Driver did it to several cars and didn't have any problem getting them stopped. But they were probably not tentative about it at first like one might do in an unfamiliar circumstance. They went full bore on the brakes as hard as they could from second 1.
I agree brake override is a good thing and should be implemented. But it doesn't excuse the officer. I understand being unfamiliar with a car. But every car that Car and Driver tested, including some very high powered ones, were relatively easily stopped by pressing on the brake hard enough to overwhelm the engine at full throttle. So either he was pressing the wrong pedal (throttle), or he was so paniced that he wasn't even properly romping the brake pedal. As well as how hard is it to think even in an unfamilar car to shift into neutral?
It has been 15 years, but now that I think about it, I believe we used 3rd to reduce lurching, not 5th. I remembered it being on the top gate row. Because 1st would actually turn the engine over fastest at the lowest forward speed, but it would lurch if you weren't on the ball. I got confused.
In fact yes they do in all vaccum brake driven cars I am aware of. Though maybe there are a few that don't as there is always an odd ball out. Every car I know with vacuum brakes also has a vacuum reservoir. Most provide 2 full pedal presses with the car off, and will maintain that for at least several minutes if the reservoir isn't broken, before the reservoir is depleted.
Have you read your owner's manual. Every push button car I've seen tells you in the manual how to turn the car off in an emergency. If you have a Toyota or Lexus it is a 2 second push on the ignition button. It is in the manual.
Also engaging the parking brake is unnecessary and won't appreciably reduce brake pad wear. Though it won't hurt anything as long as you are applying maximum pressure to the regular brakes first. Parking brakes have small pads designed only to hold the car in position, not to dissipate the enormous forces and heat it takes to stop from any decent speed.
Manual steering cars had lower gearing, larger steering wheels for leverage, and were designed to be as easy to turn as possible. Power steering cars are not designed for easy steering when the pump fails, only to be controllable enough that an averagely weak person could maintain control in most circumstances.
I drove a Scout for 3 years when I turned 16 twenty years ago. The steering pump failed several times, the engine would die, the vacuum canister would reguarly spring leaks meaning I had no power brakes at times. The throttle pedal stuck once at moderate speed. I didn't have too much trouble handling it when those things happened. And it was a 3 ton big truck, Suburban size. But if you were a small 90 pound girl, it might have been a little hard.
I'm not on board with that unless it was basically a switch in a guard, under the dash or on the left hand side of the driver, which would make it hard to find in an emergency too.
The alternative that I prefer is we standardize all keyless ignition cars on turning off with a 2 second press and hold on the ignition button and a public education campaign. That gives the driver long enough to swat the person's hand away if it would be dangerous to activate at that point. A easily accessible kill switch is more likely to be inadvertently pressed by a curious child or a mischevious teen passenger traveling with friends, than it will need to be used by someone in an emergency. A passenger would generally be able to shift the car into neutral if there is an emergency.
And if you are working on a car and don't want it to start, you should disconnect the battery, period. If you are trouble shooting with the power attached you should expect the car to start at any point, or if that is a problem, put all of the keys into the glove box. Doing anything else is unsafe.
The claim is this car had an unusual shift gate that made it hard to put in neutral. I've also read a not verified claim that the electronically controlled transmission would not allow the car to shift into neutral either due to an error, or a poorly chosen protective feature. Theoretically that could happen because the shifting is completely controlled by electronic solenoids rather than mechanical solenoids attached to the shifter as in older automatic transmissions.
But it was plenty of time for this trooper to fix the problem before he crashed. The occupants had time to realize the problem, call 911, have them answer, and have an extended conversation about what was happening before the crash. I'm too lazy to find and read the report again to know the exact time, but it had to be over 30 seconds, probably over a minute.
No, Aereo's product only place shifts, it does not time shift or offer multiple viewings. Mailing VCR tapes does all 3. In their business model, a user is renting an antenna on Aereo's plant to transfer the signal to their TV in as close as real time as possible and without the ability to time shift, review, or view multiply.
If this is decided to be a form of rebroadcasting, it would invalidate the prescident set in the Cablevision network DVR case. If Aereo loses, I think it won't be for that, but on the basis of potentially transferring geographically restricted content out of the region and that the customer renting the equipment from Aereo's plant does not constitute fair use on private equipment.
I've had my old Scout throttle jam going around a corner. I instantly stomped on the brakes, put it in neutral, and as the revs built and it started backfiring I switched the ignition to acc. It was an instant knee jerk reaction that surprised even me. But there are days I've been in a mental fog that would have probably resulted in me having more trouble, though I can't imagine letting it get out of hand to double the legal speeds. In addition, this specific accident was a CHP officer that should be practiced in high speed driving and used to dealing with stressful circumstances.
It was wanting to keep going but still slowing down and you then thought to put it in park, or it wouldn't slow down at all? Car And Driver tried stopping several cars at speed with the throttle wide open, including a few very powerful cars, and they didn't have too much trouble.
I read that accusation by a person who had no qualifications or access to know there was a problem with the computer. But I haven't read that was conclusively proven (that the computer was having a fault) regarding this accident. Given that stomping on the brake which is more powerful than the engine would have stopped the car, and this officer failed to do that, I'm more likely to believe the researchers who spent months studying the accident.
Not only will air bags function if the car is turned off, as a safety feature, they store enough energy to run the controller for several seconds and fire the air bags in a capacitor in case the battery is damaged or disconnected before the air bag reaches firing deceleration threshold. You can completely disconnect the battery and the air bags will still fire. They have injured, and I believe killed a few mechanics this way.
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If the brakes were so old that they weren't functioning, then they'd be squealing horribly against their wear indicatiors and the CHP officer should have turned right back around and declined the loaner. The length of time this occurred is somewhat irrelevant other than to indict the officer's judgement. This should have lasted no more than a few seconds to prevent the car from attaining triple digit speeds and allowing passenger panic to get out of hand.
I have had this happen in an old vehicle in the middle of a moderate speed curve with someone directly in front of me, and I got the car under control in a few seconds without hitting the other car. lf this had happened to me on a busy freeway, and I wasn't having a mental fog day, by the time the car was going 10 miles an hour faster than I intended or I was nearing the car in front of me, I would have in rapid succession (which is pretty much how it happened to me previously) stepped very firmly on the brake pedal, attempted to shift into neutral, stabbed at the ignition button and if it didn't turn off press and hold, and allow the car to hit the person in front of me if the speed differential was still not too great and nothing I was doing was working, or alternatively head for something like a barrier or median to help slow the car down. My parents have been hit by a car on the freeway in similar circumstance where the steering column of the other car broke, and the damage was limited.
He either had a bad day, or didn't handle stressful situations very well and it unfortunately got the better of his family.
You're right about the 3 seconds, sorry. It has been since this was a hot story that I looked it up in the owner's manual, and apparently I dropped a second along the way.
But not as much better as the engine in the case of the car chosen by C&D. The Roush Mustang took 80 more feet to stop from 70 mph throttle closed vs open. The Toyota Camry took only 16 more feet to stop. Since Lexuses are performance luxury cars, they have pretty good brakes comparatively. http://www.caranddriver.com/features/how-to-deal-with-unintended-acceleration
They seem to work. Our 1983 Eldorado had 2 presses worth of the brake pedal, our 1979 Scout did when it was working correctly, our 1990 and 1995 Nissan Maxima, our 1994 and 1999 Nissan Altima, my 2001 Nissan Pathfinder, all had 2 power assisted presses of the brake pedal after the car was off. Here is one for a domestic car, I think it is exactly the one used on an 83 Eldorado. I'm not sure what the foreign car reserviors look like http://www.finditparts.com/products/596770/dorman-47077?gclid=CIfbw6Tosq8CFS2htgodeW_lhA
No, it is 2 seconds, and the car turns off. There has been no reliable and verified reports that the car fails to turn off after a 2 second push on the button.
A car with a faulty o2 sensor should recognize the out of limits signal and go from closed loop mode to open loop mode, meaning the o2 sensor isn't necessary, and it will run fine, except have worse emissions, while turning on your emissions light.
It wasn't just that you had run out of vacuum. Had the brakes been fresh and cool with no vacuum assist you would have probably stopped fine too. After 4 high speed hard presses, the pads had heated up to over 1000dF and were outgassing. Most production cars do not have vented pads. The gas builds up between the rotor and pad and prevents full contact, meaning the pads no longer have enough friction to stop the car.
Not 3, not 4, not 5, or 10. Two seconds is the correct answer and it will turn the engine off. It has been published several places and it is in the owner's manual.
Car and Driver did it to several cars and didn't have any problem getting them stopped. But they were probably not tentative about it at first like one might do in an unfamiliar circumstance. They went full bore on the brakes as hard as they could from second 1.
I agree brake override is a good thing and should be implemented. But it doesn't excuse the officer. I understand being unfamiliar with a car. But every car that Car and Driver tested, including some very high powered ones, were relatively easily stopped by pressing on the brake hard enough to overwhelm the engine at full throttle. So either he was pressing the wrong pedal (throttle), or he was so paniced that he wasn't even properly romping the brake pedal. As well as how hard is it to think even in an unfamilar car to shift into neutral?
It has been 15 years, but now that I think about it, I believe we used 3rd to reduce lurching, not 5th. I remembered it being on the top gate row. Because 1st would actually turn the engine over fastest at the lowest forward speed, but it would lurch if you weren't on the ball. I got confused.
In fact yes they do in all vaccum brake driven cars I am aware of. Though maybe there are a few that don't as there is always an odd ball out. Every car I know with vacuum brakes also has a vacuum reservoir. Most provide 2 full pedal presses with the car off, and will maintain that for at least several minutes if the reservoir isn't broken, before the reservoir is depleted.
Google's already working on that, to some success.
Have you read your owner's manual. Every push button car I've seen tells you in the manual how to turn the car off in an emergency. If you have a Toyota or Lexus it is a 2 second push on the ignition button. It is in the manual.
Also engaging the parking brake is unnecessary and won't appreciably reduce brake pad wear. Though it won't hurt anything as long as you are applying maximum pressure to the regular brakes first. Parking brakes have small pads designed only to hold the car in position, not to dissipate the enormous forces and heat it takes to stop from any decent speed.
Manual steering cars had lower gearing, larger steering wheels for leverage, and were designed to be as easy to turn as possible. Power steering cars are not designed for easy steering when the pump fails, only to be controllable enough that an averagely weak person could maintain control in most circumstances.
I drove a Scout for 3 years when I turned 16 twenty years ago. The steering pump failed several times, the engine would die, the vacuum canister would reguarly spring leaks meaning I had no power brakes at times. The throttle pedal stuck once at moderate speed. I didn't have too much trouble handling it when those things happened. And it was a 3 ton big truck, Suburban size. But if you were a small 90 pound girl, it might have been a little hard.
I'm not on board with that unless it was basically a switch in a guard, under the dash or on the left hand side of the driver, which would make it hard to find in an emergency too.
The alternative that I prefer is we standardize all keyless ignition cars on turning off with a 2 second press and hold on the ignition button and a public education campaign. That gives the driver long enough to swat the person's hand away if it would be dangerous to activate at that point. A easily accessible kill switch is more likely to be inadvertently pressed by a curious child or a mischevious teen passenger traveling with friends, than it will need to be used by someone in an emergency. A passenger would generally be able to shift the car into neutral if there is an emergency.
And if you are working on a car and don't want it to start, you should disconnect the battery, period. If you are trouble shooting with the power attached you should expect the car to start at any point, or if that is a problem, put all of the keys into the glove box. Doing anything else is unsafe.
The claim is this car had an unusual shift gate that made it hard to put in neutral. I've also read a not verified claim that the electronically controlled transmission would not allow the car to shift into neutral either due to an error, or a poorly chosen protective feature. Theoretically that could happen because the shifting is completely controlled by electronic solenoids rather than mechanical solenoids attached to the shifter as in older automatic transmissions.
But it was plenty of time for this trooper to fix the problem before he crashed. The occupants had time to realize the problem, call 911, have them answer, and have an extended conversation about what was happening before the crash. I'm too lazy to find and read the report again to know the exact time, but it had to be over 30 seconds, probably over a minute.
No, Aereo's product only place shifts, it does not time shift or offer multiple viewings. Mailing VCR tapes does all 3. In their business model, a user is renting an antenna on Aereo's plant to transfer the signal to their TV in as close as real time as possible and without the ability to time shift, review, or view multiply.
If this is decided to be a form of rebroadcasting, it would invalidate the prescident set in the Cablevision network DVR case. If Aereo loses, I think it won't be for that, but on the basis of potentially transferring geographically restricted content out of the region and that the customer renting the equipment from Aereo's plant does not constitute fair use on private equipment.
I've had my old Scout throttle jam going around a corner. I instantly stomped on the brakes, put it in neutral, and as the revs built and it started backfiring I switched the ignition to acc. It was an instant knee jerk reaction that surprised even me. But there are days I've been in a mental fog that would have probably resulted in me having more trouble, though I can't imagine letting it get out of hand to double the legal speeds. In addition, this specific accident was a CHP officer that should be practiced in high speed driving and used to dealing with stressful circumstances.
It is 2 seconds, and it is documented in their owner's manual. If a quick press doesn't work, does it not make sense to try a little longer press?
It was wanting to keep going but still slowing down and you then thought to put it in park, or it wouldn't slow down at all? Car And Driver tried stopping several cars at speed with the throttle wide open, including a few very powerful cars, and they didn't have too much trouble.
I read that accusation by a person who had no qualifications or access to know there was a problem with the computer. But I haven't read that was conclusively proven (that the computer was having a fault) regarding this accident. Given that stomping on the brake which is more powerful than the engine would have stopped the car, and this officer failed to do that, I'm more likely to believe the researchers who spent months studying the accident.
Not only will air bags function if the car is turned off, as a safety feature, they store enough energy to run the controller for several seconds and fire the air bags in a capacitor in case the battery is damaged or disconnected before the air bag reaches firing deceleration threshold. You can completely disconnect the battery and the air bags will still fire. They have injured, and I believe killed a few mechanics this way.