Toyota is issuing a recall for 3.8 million vehicles because they have floormats that may cause the gas pedal to become stuck.
While this can certainly be a major problem, far more concerning is the inability of people to effectively deal with the issue. The NHTSA says that over 100 incidents have been brought to its attention, and the Associated Press has reported on a family that was killed when their Lexus began accelerating out of control. Someone in the vehicle called 911 to report that the accelerator was stuck and the brakes no longer worked. They then crashed.
The brake failure could have been coincidental, but was likely just an example of brake fade. Even the most vicious track pads will fail if you floor both the brake and gas pedals, and I’m sure the Lexus in question did not have any upgrades in that department. The shocking thing is how easy it would have been to avert this disaster: all the driver had to do was put the car in neutral. Sure the engine would have freaked out, but at least it would not have kept accelerating the car.
It is not surprising though that no one in that car thought to put it in neutral. Most people don’t really know what is going on when they make an input in their cars. And here is an example of why not knowing some of these basics can be deadly.
on October 6, 2009 at 4:30 pm Kai Noeske wrote:
Agreed. No matter how idiot-proof you make cars and how low you set the speed limit, there is no way of eliminating emergencies. The best way to avoid accidents is to teach people how to drive and how driving physics works - then they might understand that trucks aren’t sports cars for a reason and that rubber on tarmac only brakes so fast, no matter how they praise the gadgets in your brake system in the TV ad.
Driver education is non-existent. My US license was $36 at a DMV in CA, completing a few Mickey Mouse questions and driving my car around the block for 20 min.
Things were only marginally better back in Germany. True, we needed to complete some 40 - ish darn expensive practice lessons including night and autobahn driving. Yet, no driver emergency training whatsoever either. Some emergency measures and concepts of car mechanics were discussed in the ample classroom program that you attend for months at weeknights; that made things at least a little better. There was still no training of emergency braking / evasive maneuvers / dealing with mechanical failures on a lot full of traffic cones. Only motorcycle students need to complete that, probably because they die so often. Even when I drove ambulances for national service, there was no special driver training. Clueless why that is the same problem around the world.
Would people drive more responsibly if they ever had their car drift out of control in a driving skills school? I know I got more cautious after I started autocrossing and driving on the track, simply because I got more aware of the limits and consequences, and how important it is to maintain that bit of emergency space.
on October 26, 2009 at 12:36 pm Noah wrote:
I think there will always be a class of drivers that overdrives themselves for whatever reason. But as the system currently stands, NO ONE has ANY IDEA WHAYSOEVER about what to do in an emergency. That is just unfathomable to me.