Unintended acceleration

[4RE KLR]

Mike
Exactly!

There were four young kids killed near our home in a Toyota. The car kept accelerating and the driver had his foot on the brakes while the car kept speeding up faster and faster.

The car went through a pipe fence flipped and drown all four occupants in a small pond in a residential community.

They were on their way home from church. There were witnesses and the drivers parents were following behind the car when it happened.

All Four RIP.

[joyridin']

Tell you what. Take whatever car you want, and go down the road doing 60 mph. Hit the brakes while your foot is ont he gas and tell me what happens.

I have a Toyota RAV4 and I have tried it. The car stops. Maybe had I been near a sharp curve or had somebody right in front of me, I would have had some issues, but the car stopped. My brother tried it on his 3/4 ton Dodge Ram with a V-10. The truck stopped. I'm not sure there is a newer factory built car where the brakes won't overpower the engine.

[BlueRooster]

The brakes should always overpower the engine. Something smells fishy with the old man. He mentioned that he brought the prius in for a recall notice and they turned him away. Revenge anyone? To be a man, driving cars for over 40 years and to not put the thing in neutral is just humiliating.....I pity da fool.

[Z-linkCobra]

I think some of you guys hit the nail on the head...driver stupidity. I have heard in the past about some people not being able to put the car into neutral while it was accelerating...it wouldnt let them. I have put that to the test several times over the years, fact is, it works everytime.

i also know for a fact that when things happen suddenly, unless you have past knowledge to rely on you will sort of freak out. I know you can be idleing along in traffic and go to step on the brakes and if that pedal goes to the floor...you will swear that car speed up...lol.

Im not saying Toyota dosnt have most of the blame in this deal...from what I hear they did try to cover up a known problem. At what point does the driver accept some responsibility. Put into neutral...it will go i promise. The guy he was afraid it was going to flip if he put into neutral...he's a f'in moron that shouldnt be driving..hell he bought a Prius, what does that tell you.

[Wayne Maybury]

Originally Posted by BlueRooster

The brakes should always overpower the engine. Something smells fishy with the old man. He mentioned that he brought the prius in for a recall notice and they turned him away. Revenge anyone? To be a man, driving cars for over 40 years and to not put the thing in neutral is just humiliating.....I pity da fool.

Maybe the police officer is also a fool as he said he saw the brake lights on and he could smell the brakes overheating which means that the driver must have been trying hard to stop the car. The officer told the driver to also use the emergency brake along with the regular brakes which then did slow the car down.

Don't forget that Hybrids use the generator/alternator to recharge the batteries while slowing the car down. That is, the hybrid relies heavily on the charging system to do much of the braking. If the computer mal-functioned, isn't it possible that the electric motor combined with the gasoline engine were able to over-power the hydralic brakes (alone) which were not receiving the normal help from the charging system? I'm not saying that the driver did not share the blame by not putting the car in neutral, but we cannot assume that he was a total fool either.

Wayne

[CobraEd]

If he didn't slam on the brakes hard from the start but just pushed them moderatly hard over and over, they would get hot and fade. Fadded brakes won't stop anything. he had to nail them all the way once at the beginning of the problem.


.

[1ntCobra]

The guy was afraid to put the car in neutral because he was afraid the car might flip over?

It took a few days before the dad and mom of balloon boy admitted what their stunt was really for...

[Buzz]

I have to admit that I smell a rat here too. My instincts tell me that this is either a case of deliberate publicity seeking or at best, a case of near terminal driver incompetence exacerbating a possible problem with the car.

(exacerbating - is it just me or is that a nasty sounding word?)

[PatBuckley]

exacerbating = precision masturbation



Back to the topic - I think there may be a few cases of unintended acceleration, but the rest of them are bogus.

[bulletbrown]

The problem is that the drivers start to pump the brakes and the power assist drops to less than 50% or more , no vacuum is available to assist the booster : so you are in big trouble real fast . We took a Camry and tried this and you will find this problem to be very scary, you lose braking big time.

[Wes Tausend]

...

This whole Toyota Prius thing seems kind of contrived. Parts of the problem are legit. Not only the throttle, but the tranny is also shift by wire, as are several other automotive products of all makes nowadays. Transmission controls are becoming more electric than hydraulic/mechanical. Neutral may not be an option. The start-stop button/switch automatically electrically puts the car in park when shut down, or there is another button to select park only ...all by wire only. It has a mechanical parking brake.

Rant on.
The number of throttle fail incidents is so low that it is probably about average for "throttle-by-wire" manufacturers, but somebody let the dogs out now. I will really be ticked off if our old '07 Prius is banned from the highway over something so irrational. Next banned will probably be the 3/4 ton 7000 pound Excursion. They are both best at what they are designed to do, and we can't have that now, can we!? I currently have a wiring problem in the Excursion that allows the center rear brake light to work, but precludes life in any fender brake-lights or any signal blinkers. Weird. At least the Excursion occupants would be OK in case of stuck throttle; but everybody else would die.
Rant off.

After reading numerous technical reports, I find it hard to believe an electronic computer glitch can cause this in such a fashion that it cannot be overcome by the driver. Closest possibility would be a cruise control bogus call for "full accelerate", but even "cruise" drops power when brakes are applied. And anybody here got brakes so poor, they can't hold WOT? Maybe a diesel truck in low range.

There are instances of throttle by wire not working right on the railroad. I once had the two locomotives behind me suddenly go to 8 throttle (wide open) when I called for notch 3 on my lead unit. Throughout the trip, it caused numerous acceleration jerks that broke several knuckles until we literally ran out of spare knuckles in 200+ miles, despite my best efforts to control it with simultaneous braking. Mechanical forces dropped another spare off to us, from a work truck, 7 miles from home.

And DP (remote) locomotives retain their last settings, including throttle, for an extended period of time, if the lead control unit loses radio contact. That has been more of a problem getting timely release of air and dynamic brakes to me, but not more. A fellow engineer has had a rear locomotive stick in WFO 8 when radio contact should have been fine (no hills between). In his case, a different screen control mode stopped the error immediately, but it was a repeatable error in the original control mode, and constituted an apparent computer error since a wiring error would be consistent regardless of screen IMO.

Most of the locomotives use a Windows operating system, but I have seen one that rebooted in Unix. They do occasionally crash (digitally) while underway. Whatever, full brake application will eventually stop several full throttle locomotives in most lengthy trains. Short trains are trickier and actually more difficult to control.

On our Prius, it would be nice to have a simple positive mechanical power disconnect, even though I think most of the recent problems are contrived for some vague monetary reason. But, I hate to bet my life on anything, since I lived over 18 years old. Before that I was invincible.

Wes

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[1ntCobra]

Originally Posted by Wes Tausend

...

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Rant on.

...
At least the Excursion occupants would be OK in case of stuck throttle; but everybody else would die.
...
Rant off.

...

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It is interesting that many people believe that the big heavy SUVs are the safest cars for their kids to be driving, yet I heard somewhere that most teenage driver deaths currently happen in SUV rollovers.

[Ralphy]

I see the guys background is now being questioned.

I heard of another story about a man pulling into the dealership claiming accelerator issues and slammed into the dealers building. Very convenient....

[Wes Tausend]

Originally Posted by 1ntCobra

It is interesting that many people believe that the big heavy SUVs are the safest cars for their kids to be driving, yet I heard somewhere that most teenage driver deaths currently happen in SUV rollovers.

1ntCobra,

Well, heck. You gotta drive Excursions like locomotives; don't try to suddenly avoid collision, just run over anything in the way. I've never heard of anyone being killed in a locomotive rollover.

I'm thinking that SUV's are more prone to rollover, offer more seductive power... maybe the reason for more deaths in the young and unwary.

I'd hate to be in the lightweight Prius and be hit by an Excursion just as I'd hate to be hit by a train in anything, even another train. The problem with trains is we are riding on the nosecone. All the crush zone, and weight, is behind us.

Wes


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[olddog]

I certainly believe people see there chance for 15 minutes of fame or cash in on a law suit. However that does not explain the elderly man and his wife who died at over 100 mph while talking to 911.

Years ago no one believed all the claims that ford had a problem until a cop went to move a cruiser with one foot out side the door. With witnesses. They proved the front wheels were locked and sliding. Ford was claiming foot on wrong peddle and floor matts. It turned out to be a faulty crews control issue.

At WOT manifold vacuum drops to near zero. Power brakes have a check valve in the line but it bleads off fairly quick. If you are running along 70 MPH in cruise, and it goes WOT, you will likely be up to 80 mph before you know it. You try tapping the brakes a couple times first to turn off the crews. The power brakes are gone pretty quick.

When you are absolutely caught off guard and have to react in seconds, it is a whole lot different than thinking about if for an hour and then pointing out how stupid other people are. Granted there is no shortage of stupid people, I just don't think all the victoms are at fault. After all someone designed these cars. The first fly by wire car a saw, I said this is a disaster waiting to happen. Yes planes do it, but they cost millions of dollars. A tripple redundant fail safe design is a small percentage of the cost of a plane. Cars are relatively cheap, high volume, assembly line built units. Bad idea in my mind.

[Rick Parker]

I heard of another story about a man pulling into the dealership claiming accelerator issues and slammed into the dealers building. Very convenient....

This guy probably traded in his wifes SUV that he was under water on by $4000 and now the wife is giving him an even harder time because shes afraid to drive it to the grocery store.


AND:

I'll bet the guy at Toyota that had his design of a $5.00 throttle cable replaced by that of the Drive By Wire is questioning managements decision about now???
Sure makes the price of a replacement cable look pretty attractive.

[Wes Tausend]

Originally Posted by olddog

I certainly believe people see there chance for 15 minutes of fame or cash in on a law suit. However that does not explain the elderly man and his wife who died at over 100 mph while talking to 911.

Years ago no one believed all the claims that ford had a problem until a cop went to move a cruiser with one foot out side the door. With witnesses. They proved the front wheels were locked and sliding. Ford was claiming foot on wrong peddle and floor matts. It turned out to be a faulty crews control issue.

At WOT manifold vacuum drops to near zero. Power brakes have a check valve in the line but it bleads off fairly quick. If you are running along 70 MPH in cruise, and it goes WOT, you will likely be up to 80 mph before you know it. You try tapping the brakes a couple times first to turn off the crews. The power brakes are gone pretty quick.
When you are absolutely caught off guard and have to react in seconds, it is a whole lot different than thinking about if for an hour and then pointing out how stupid other people are. Granted there is no shortage of stupid people, I just don't think all the victoms are at fault. After all someone designed these cars. The first fly by wire car a saw, I said this is a disaster waiting to happen. Yes planes do it, but they cost millions of dollars. A tripple redundant fail safe design is a small percentage of the cost of a plane. Cars are relatively cheap, high volume, assembly line built units. Bad idea in my mind.

Good points, olddog.

Earlier in the thread, I spoke of trains. I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit it, but I had a recent "caught off guard" experience while working in the middle of the night, 2-3 AM. While underway, we got a Track Warrant (radio permission) to proceed to a further siding. As we entered the siding, an opposing train on the main line began to leave. By the glow on the horizon, I could see the second train-meet was also close behind the first.

As I worked my way to the far end and rounded a curve, it looked like either the remote or pusher unit, of the train leaving, had a wrong headlight on, a front instead of rear. I dutifully dimmed my headlight so that they could identify my number lights, which made it harder for me to see. But suddenly, after more curve, I could see that the headlight was on my track moving towards me. It had to be the second train. I panicked, dumped all the train air brake into emergency, and applied as much engine brake as I thought I could without sliding the wheels. We were only doing about 10 mph. My next thought was jump.

Turned out to be a false alarm. Stupid move on my part. It was merely a train ahead of me, stopped in the siding, and I could have made a casual stop. The engine I was facing dead-on was a remote unit on the rear of this train. The illusion of it moving was given by the moving shadow of coal heaped on the train beside it, still leaving the main line. The dispatcher had told the conductor about the unusual parked train ahead, but apparently I was busy with operating and didn't hear it. It must have shaved a good week off my life. Besides, I'll get demerits for using an emergency brake application on the black box hard-drive.

So, operator error; lack of situational awareness. These computer controls never crash and erase everything when you need it. Rats.

Wes

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[Tommy]

AP Update:
"A memo drafted for a congressional panel says that investigators with Toyota Motor Corp. and the federal government were unable to make a Prius speed out of control as its owner said it did on a California freeway, casting doubt on the driver's story."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100314/..._runaway_prius