Man killed because his cruise control wouldn't switch off!

[AJL308]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/24/drivers...

The inquest in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, heard that the motorist was heard telling police his car was driving itself as it reached 119mph two seconds before the collision with the stationary 18-tonne lorry.

WTAF?? This is frightening.

No suggestion that it was intentional or that he was under the influence of anything.

Is this the biggest reason ever not to buy any vehicle with has a fully electronic starting system? At least you can turn a key to "off".

[AJL308]

Andehh said:

I just don't understand this, why couldn't he just press long & hard on the brakes? Why not go for the handbrake? Why not sideswipe the central reservation and steer hard into it? Hell...why not go into the back of a moving lorry?

Why would you turn off the motorway, when the chance of it ending badly rockets up? At least on the motorway your all travelling at speed, in the same direction.

Fair enough moment of panic, but still.....

I don't understand it either. Why on earth would it not stay in neutral? I assume this was a manual car rather than an auto so it shouldn't even be possible for it to jump back in to gear. And, yes, stand on the brakes, pull the handbrake. Something has been missed here, surely?

[AJL308]

Given that it happened at 3am - is it possible that he was semi-asleep? Seems unlikely if he was on the phone for 8.5 minutes.

[AJL308]

Andehh said:

Last 1/3 of the article says it all. He had the accelerator peddle depressed...

[quote]The inquest heard that the main car part that recorded the data was destroyed in the collision, but it had fed the information to the vehicle's airbag system.

That data revealed the Skoda was travelling at 116mph with the accelerator pedal fully depressed five seconds before the crash.

No braking was recorded, but there was evidence of small steering left and right as dashcam footage from Mr Hague's HGV showed the car veering from the middle lane into nearside lane, where the motorway merged with A40.

The car continued to accelerate and hit a top speed of 119mph with the accelerator pedal pressed two-thirds of the way down, two seconds before the impact at 94mph when it was fully off, the inquest heard.

Mr Clatworthy said: "There is no indication that there was any error or problem with any of the electronic systems of the car in the five seconds leading up to the collision."

It says the accelerator pedal was depressed. The cruise control could have been responsible for that.

[AJL308]

Shaw Tarse said:

AJL308 said:

It says the accelerator pedal was depressed. The cruise control could have been responsible for that.

Does cruise move the pedal?

All of the cars I've had with CC have done it.

[AJL308]

menguin said:

AJL308 said:

Andehh said:

Last 1/3 of the article says it all. He had the accelerator peddle depressed...

[quote]The inquest heard that the main car part that recorded the data was destroyed in the collision, but it had fed the information to the vehicle's airbag system.

That data revealed the Skoda was travelling at 116mph with the accelerator pedal fully depressed five seconds before the crash.

No braking was recorded, but there was evidence of small steering left and right as dashcam footage from Mr Hague's HGV showed the car veering from the middle lane into nearside lane, where the motorway merged with A40.

The car continued to accelerate and hit a top speed of 119mph with the accelerator pedal pressed two-thirds of the way down, two seconds before the impact at 94mph when it was fully off, the inquest heard.

Mr Clatworthy said: "There is no indication that there was any error or problem with any of the electronic systems of the car in the five seconds leading up to the collision."

It says the accelerator pedal was depressed. The cruise control could have been responsible for that.

Would cruise control [i]fully[/] depress the pedal? Any cruise control system I've used before has used gradual acceleration, not WOT.

A mate of mine has recently acquired a big Volvo of some description which has this active cruise, I think it's called. It adjusts your speed according to traffic. If you've set it to 70 and you come up behind something doing 50 it slows you down to match the speed. If you pull out to overtake it gets you back up to 70. He commented that it accelerates much quicker than he would have expected it to. Certainly more quickly than he would have done.

[AJL308]

Andehh said:

AJL308 said:

Shaw Tarse said:

AJL308 said:

It says the accelerator pedal was depressed. The cruise control could have been responsible for that.

Does cruise move the pedal?

All of the cars I've had with CC have done it.

[/b]Really? So all the car for you have held the accelerator peddle down according to what you set the cruise control at? What car's are they?[/b]

I had a Skoda Octavia (mk2) with cruise that certainly did not do that, going off the article I assume he was driving the Octavia mk3.

John145 said:

2 different flexray signals from 2 different ECUs, one is throttle pedal position and other is DAS engine torque demand. The two are calculated from different places and one does not effect the other.

That's the technical description for my layman's logic.

I had a Merc 500 SEC which did it. I currently have a Vectra (manual) and an auto VW Phaeton (perhaps the same system as the Octavia?)which both do it. Although now you've brought it up you have me doubting my self. I'll experiment later today.

[AJL308]

rscott said:

AJL308 said:

menguin said:

AJL308 said:

Andehh said:

Last 1/3 of the article says it all. He had the accelerator peddle depressed...

[quote]The inquest heard that the main car part that recorded the data was destroyed in the collision, but it had fed the information to the vehicle's airbag system.

That data revealed the Skoda was travelling at 116mph with the accelerator pedal fully depressed five seconds before the crash.

No braking was recorded, but there was evidence of small steering left and right as dashcam footage from Mr Hague's HGV showed the car veering from the middle lane into nearside lane, where the motorway merged with A40.

The car continued to accelerate and hit a top speed of 119mph with the accelerator pedal pressed two-thirds of the way down, two seconds before the impact at 94mph when it was fully off, the inquest heard.

Mr Clatworthy said: "There is no indication that there was any error or problem with any of the electronic systems of the car in the five seconds leading up to the collision."

It says the accelerator pedal was depressed. The cruise control could have been responsible for that.

Would cruise control [i]fully[/] depress the pedal? Any cruise control system I've used before has used gradual acceleration, not WOT.

A mate of mine has recently acquired a big Volvo of some description which has this active cruise, I think it's called. It adjusts your speed according to traffic. If you've set it to 70 and you come up behind something doing 50 it slows you down to match the speed. If you pull out to overtake it gets you back up to 70. He commented that it accelerates much quicker than he would have expected it to. Certainly more quickly than he would have done.

My Saab 9-3 (year 2000) would also use plenty of throttle when on cruise, but only if I hammered the speed increase button . It also recorded throttle position and cruise throttle request as different parameters (viewed by the OBD link). It also most certainly never moved the pedal.


Just wondering - could it have been a diesel engine gone runaway?

That's a good point.

Again though, that in its self shouldn't prevent it being knocked out of gear.

[AJL308]

900T-R said:

Andehh said:

Even Automatics allow you to change into neutral at speed?

They do (says he, who accidentally knocked autobox Mercedes' with the column mounted gear selector into neutral when driving, more than once ).

It's exciting when you do it when the cruise is engaged - feels like the engine is trying to leap out of the car!

[AJL308]

shakotan said:

AJL308 said:

Shaw Tarse said:

AJL308 said:

It says the accelerator pedal was depressed. The cruise control could have been responsible for that.

Does cruise move the pedal?

All of the cars I've had with CC have done it.

Unless you car was from the 70s or earlier, I don't believe you are correct.

My '89 500 SEC definitely did it. I currently have a Vectra and a Phaeton, both 2007, which I'm sure both do it.

Edit: Perhaps it just keeps the pedal in the position it was at when you pressed the button but I'm sure it moves the pedal if you use the button on the CC to increase to set speed. I'll check.

Edited by AJL308 on Thursday 24th November 15:54

[AJL308]

Cotty said:

Suicide but trying to disguise it as a vehicle fault?

That's the obvious assumption but the court seems to have found no evidence to support it.

[AJL308]

The Spruce goose said:

i would say hysteria, panic took over, most likely doing it himself.

For over eight minutes?

[AJL308]

MrNoisy said:

Very few cars move the pedal since the advent of decent electronic control. Older cars did it and some newer stuff - Landrover products with a V8 are one example that still had vacuum operated cruise into the 2000's. Still has many many overides should the mechanical link fail.

2 possibilities.....

1. The mat is stuck, easily done but unlikely over 8 minutes
2. A staged suicide for misguided insurance reasons - that's what my money is on.

The idea that the electronic gubbins has failed or taken the signal from the throttle etc is pure fantasy land stuff. Throttles don't get stuck open since we got rid of the stty cables ffs.

1 I think is unlikely as the report says that the accelerator was two thirds of the way down at one point and fully off 2 seconds before the collision. Unless the mat was very obstructive then it shouldn't have been stuck in that position.

[AJL308]

Jonesy23 said:

There is basically zero evidence to support what the guy was saying on the phone was happening with the car (except that he was going fast down the road) and a whole pile of stuff that says he was in control of the car and made no attempt to stop, apart from lifting off the throttle just before impact.

He also did a good job in coming to a stop by steering from the lane he was in into the back of a stationary lorry in a layby.

The coroner and everyone else knows what happened, if not why, and a faulty car wasn't part of it.

It was mentioned that there was a beeping sound of some sort when he was apparently trying to switch the car off with the start/stop button.

[AJL308]

B'stard Child said:

AdeTuono said:

B'stard Child said:

GazV70R said:

Zod said:

I don't believe there is a single car on the market now or in the past thirty years on which the accelerator pedal is moved by the cruise control.

What about every car produced with cruise control that had a cable operated throttle and not drive by wire?
For example my Mk1 V70R had cruise that physically moved the accelerator - was very useful for smoothly coming off cruise once you'd got used to the weird sensation!

Numerous comments already made to clearly demonstrate that his statement was wrong.....

Should we have a separate thread for 'Does an accelerator pedal move when under cruise control?' Seems to be derailing the thread slightly.

And yes, it does. IME.

I think a better thread would be on the subject of the increasing DBW, nanny state, safety nets etc etc that modern cars provide

I had the pleasure of being a passenger recently in a modern car being driven by an idiot - these things are a safety net to help you when you are caught out - he was driving the car to and beyond the limit because the car was sorting it out for him so to him there was no risk

All the safety aids and driver assistances cannot defeat physics....

I'll not get in a car with him again I hope he only hurts himself.....

These are very good points.

Several years ago I had a TVR Griff 500HC. By modern standards it was absolutely stark staring mental! Even by the standards of the time it was extreme.

We are now at a point, I think, whereby many people's driving ability is woefully insufficient to be able to safely use powerful older cars which have no driver aids. The Griff didn't even have ABS, let alone anything as exotic as traction control. I'm not saying that my driving ability was anything out of the ordinary - and to be honest I was drifting towards the opinion that you should have had to have passed some of high-performance test to dive one - but I had an appreciation of what it could do and how difficult it could be. Anyone who has grown up with modern cars, especially fast modern cars, I think, stands a massively much higher risk of getting into serious trouble with something like a TVR or an older Porsche than they would have done twenty years ago.