Unintended acceleration

[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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