Another unexplained acceleration

[lord trumpton]

82 year old biffer vs Modern, computer controlled system

The old duffbag is at fault here imo.

[BrownBottle]

eldar said:

I suspect that was not accurate any car since 1960 will have brakes that outperform the engine. This recent thread discusses it (and jamming cruise control).

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=163...

There was a dispatches programme about it, here's a clip where Ford had removed the sound from a video that they used in court to show how easy it was to stop the car stating it only took 20 lbs of pedal pressure. Turns out they were telling porkies and it actually took 175 lbs or 12 stone of pressure which is beyond what a lot of women for example can exert.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtGa3syIIns

[eldar]

BrownBottle said:

eldar said:

I suspect that was not accurate any car since 1960 will have brakes that outperform the engine. This recent thread discusses it (and jamming cruise control).

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=163...

There was a dispatches programme about it, here's a clip where Ford had removed the sound from a video that they used in court to show how easy it was to stop the car stating it only took 20 lbs of pedal pressure. Turns out they were telling porkies and it actually took 175 lbs or 12 stone of pressure which is beyond what a lot of women for example can exert.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtGa3syIIns

So we conclude that if you are driving a large, 1970s V8 powered American car at full throttle you have to press the brakes really hard. Certainly not impossibly hard even for a woman.

See fig. 4.9 in the following.

https://msis.jsc.nasa.gov/sections/section04.htm

[BrownBottle]

Just going by what they said in the clip, doesn't look like they were trying to stop from high speed either which I imagine would require even more effort with more chance of brake fade.

[Gooly]

Sorry but I really doubt that the brakes in a modern car aren't able to overcome full throttle from standstill. Quashquai's aren't exactly powerhouses and modern cars have ridiculously overboosted pedals anyway. For this to have been a malfunction it would have needed a mixture of the electronic throttle being stuck open and a brake failure, two things which are really quite unlikely on a mass produced modern car. DBW has been around for 20 years now and as much as I hate driving cars that have them, I personally see them as far less dangerous than cable throttles.

"I can remember taking my foot off the accelerator quickly and I'm sure it went on to the brake and the brake didn't appear to be working.
"Then I saw this lady. I think she had her back to me and it just wouldn't stop before I got to her."

Edited by Gooly on Sunday 5th February 01:28

[OldGermanHeaps]

I work in a lot of sheltered housing complexes and seeing the state of some people who still drive is frightening as fk. In flats where I have been called in to fit an enuresis detector in the bed, and a shutoff contactor for the cooker linked to the fire detector in the kitchen because this is the third time they nearly burnt the place down, and an automatic pill dispenser with a radio link to the warden to inform them they have forgotten to take their medication again, but auld doris still shuffles out to her nissan note every day and pops up to the shops for a paper in a cloud of clutch smoke and rev limiter bouncing away for minutes at a time. Scheme staff try to urge the families to talk them into stopping but they don't wan't to push the awkward conversation or "take away their last freedom"
People that can't be trusted to make a fking slice of toast are still allowed to drive.
One time i had a fire panel isolated for a few minutes to add an aux relay to connect an annunciator to the buildings pa system, as soon as the panel was back online it went into fire, at first i thought I had bksed it up and i was going to get a hard time over another false alarm but protocol requires I call the brigade anyway, so i did from my mobile on the way to the flat that was displayed on the panel, then i looked through the letterbox and saw thick smoke, so my colleauge and I put the door in and went in, and there was a confused old woman who had driven to the shops, bought a nice new plastic bottomed toaster, put some bread in it, then put it on one of the rings on her electric cooker and turned the cooker on. Luckily it was just smouldering and not on fire, and the brigade got there in minutes literally just after we left the flat to get some air but once the woman got her breath back she was ranting about how she was going to drive down to tesco and give them a piece of her mind about their faulty goods. The firemen took it all in their stride and they said they see stuff like it every day. Witnessing stuff like this and the way that people seem to become more childlike as they get older I can totally see how stuff like this happens and people won't accept they could possibly be in the wrong.
I personally can't wait for self driving cars.

Edited by OldGermanHeaps on Sunday 5th February 02:01

[zeDuffMan]

I've come across a couple of old ladies merrily driving along on the wrong side of the road before now.

We've all seen stories of OAPs driving on the wrong side of a dual carriageway (yes I know there are people of all ages that have done this, but OAPs are by far the most common)

So excuse me while I fail to believe the old lady in this story insisting she hit the stop pedal and it made her go faster.

[Bunfighter]

"Scheme staff try to urge the families to talk them into stopping but they don't wan't to push the awkward conversation or "take away their last freedom"

I imagine in some cases lest the old dear amends her will...