13yr old killed in F50

[Sk00p]

TTmonkey said:

Does anyone know how far it is from the storage unit where he unloaded the car, to the point where it crashed?

370m or thereabouts

[Dr Interceptor]

I once had the throttle stick open on a V8 Discovery 2 (Auto).

A piece of rubber hose from the air intake tube had de-laminated, and got sucked up into the throttle body, wedging it open. Terrifying thing was the engine was more powerful than the brakes, so I literally couldn't stop it.

A brief moment of panic, and visions of wiping out a family-laden Fiesta flashed through my mind, before shifting it into neutral, stopping and turning the engine off.

[Gary C]

I had a throttle stick fully open in a Vauxhall chevette when the battery moved,

But I did have about a week to resolve it and the brakes were more powerful than the engine.

Anyway, we have seen it countless times on supercar videos, someone gives a supercar a bootfull and it bites, hard.

[silentbrown]

Dr Interceptor said:

I once had the throttle stick open on a V8 Discovery 2 (Auto).

A piece of rubber hose from the air intake tube had de-laminated, and got sucked up into the throttle body, wedging it open. Terrifying thing was the engine was more powerful than the brakes, so I literally couldn't stop it.

Either your brakes were knackered or you weren't pressing hard enough?

https://www.caranddriver.com/features/how-to-deal-...

Car and Driver said:

We included the powerful Roush Mustang to test—in the extreme—the theory that “brakes are stronger than the engine.” From 70 mph, the Roush’s brakes were still resolutely king even though a pinned throttle added 80 feet to its stopping distance. However, from 100 mph, it wasn’t clear from behind the wheel that the Mustang was going to stop. But after 903 feet—almost three times longer than normal—the 540-hp supercharged Roush finally did succumb, chugging to a stop in a puff of brake smoke.

[Dr Interceptor]

silentbrown said:

Either your brakes were knackered or you weren't pressing hard enough?

Most likely knackered, like the rest of the car.

[Byker28i]

carl_w said:

fblm said:

What kind of fault could cause a manual car to accelerate uncontrollably? Wouldn't the throttle need to be open in the first place in order to get stuck open?

I have some small experience of this. When I had a TVR I applied a moderate amount of loud pedal in 3rd gear at low rpm. Then I found the throttle had stuck open at that position which made things worse as the revs climbed. There is an element of panic when you don't realize what's happening. At more than 1.0 leptons I had the sense of mind to hit the ignition kill switch which solved the problem, but oh how the people I'd overtaken must have laughed as I languished on the hard shoulder. The point is that when it happens it takes a second or two for you to realize what's going on and take remedial action, which in a fast-accelerating car can be a problem.

There's a second return spring on the throttle of my Cerbera for exactly this reason.

[MikeDrop]

Gary C said:

I had a throttle stick fully open in a Vauxhall chevette when the battery moved,

But I did have about a week to resolve it and the brakes were more powerful than the engine.

Anyway, we have seen it countless times on supercar videos, someone gives a supercar a bootfull and it bites, hard.

Similar happened to me in a Saxo VTR. Someone put a cone filter on it and just "blanked" off a hole used for PCV recirc (I imagine, as the filter wasn't for the car). They used a cork. Like, from a Prosecco bottle. A cork. Sure enough, got sucked into the intake and jammed in the throttle at WOT. Had the wherewithal to dip the clutch then drove it at WOT the half mile home. That was fun

[TTmonkey]

Diesel auto's, such as those in old LR Discovery, can get to a point where the engine can do a complete run away that will be uncontrollable. Especially if they have bad gasket leaks that allow the engine to pump its own oil into the cylinder head. I'm no mechanic so I don't know the particular set of circumstances, but I know it can and does happen..

But it has to be a diesel, and it has to be an auto. If its not an auto then the clutch saves you....


What this case needs is evidence from an independent witness that shows the guy isn't lying. Is there going to be any? or will he be calling 'cover-up' by Ferrari or something if no one supports his version?

[number 46]

Looking at eurospares it looks like a normal throttle cable for the accelerator control. So a wound metal multi strade bowden type cable in an outer, the inner cable can fray and could get stuck in the outer, so I suppose a stuck throttle is a possibility. Looking at the diagram for the throttles it looks like the cable pulls a cam/lever which would have a return spring on the other side, so that would pull the throttles shut, unless you are pressing the pedal. Thats how is works on my 94 456. I guess it does depend at what point the throttle stuck open if indeed it did, you would think if that was the case then the car would have just ploughed straight on until he cut the engine, braked or it hit a fence/bank head on???? I sure that an examination of the car should answer whether the cable did stick????

[James P]

TTmonkey said:

Diesel auto's, such as those in old LR Discovery, can get to a point where the engine can do a complete run away that will be uncontrollable. Especially if they have bad gasket leaks that allow the engine to pump its own oil into the cylinder head. I'm no mechanic so I don't know the particular set of circumstances, but I know it can and does happen..

But it has to be a diesel, and it has to be an auto. If its not an auto then the clutch saves you....


What this case needs is evidence from an independent witness that shows the guy isn't lying. Is there going to be any? or will he be calling 'cover-up' by Ferrari or something if no one supports his version?

I thought the evidence had already mentioned that no fault had been found with the car?

[TTmonkey]

James P said:

TTmonkey said:

Diesel auto's, such as those in old LR Discovery, can get to a point where the engine can do a complete run away that will be uncontrollable. Especially if they have bad gasket leaks that allow the engine to pump its own oil into the cylinder head. I'm no mechanic so I don't know the particular set of circumstances, but I know it can and does happen..

But it has to be a diesel, and it has to be an auto. If its not an auto then the clutch saves you....


What this case needs is evidence from an independent witness that shows the guy isn't lying. Is there going to be any? or will he be calling 'cover-up' by Ferrari or something if no one supports his version?

I thought the evidence had already mentioned that no fault had been found with the car?

Not sure, but he can always say that the evidence has disappeared since the issue occurred. Something that is stuck becoming unstuck when the car is totalled.

[PurpleTurtle]

How many worldwide occurrences of F50 throttles jamming open? Or any Ferrari for that matter?

His defence beggars belief IMHO. As he admitted in court yesterday he has been around performance cars all his adult life. A 13yo boy (via mother’s partner) asks for a photo with the car, Cobden instead volunteers a ride in it, but doesn’t insist on seatbelts. Does anyone at this point really think he is just going to bimble up that track?

This is a man offering joyrides to children in other people’s super cars that he is paid to look after, and not even taking the basic care to make sure they belt up. It screams ‘casual approach to safety’. He’s hardly Ian Huntley but his careless actions have inadvertently led to the death of someone’s child, albeit completely unintentionally. He really needs to stop trying to pull the wool.

Even if the court were to accept his defence of a jammed throttle:

1) He’s got a clutch, dip it
2) The seatbelt, and lack of use, is careless. He’s the responsible adult. Be responsible.

[carl_w]

Byker28i said:

There's a second return spring on the throttle of my Cerbera for exactly this reason.

In this case I don't think it would have helped. Memory is hazy as I sold the car 10 years ago, but one of the bolts holding the manifold on worked itself loose. There's some sort of balljoint in the throttle assembly which when opened pushed its way past the bolt head and then when closed got itself stuck on the bolt head.

[sjc]

Sad sad story.
The lack of either of them wearing a seat belt makes me think originally that he wasn’t intending to do anything remotely silly, but ....

[SJK]

PurpleTurtle said:

How many worldwide occurrences of F50 throttles jamming open? Or any Ferrari for that matter?

His defence beggars belief IMHO. As he admitted in court yesterday he has been around performance cars all his adult life. A 13yo boy (via mother’s partner) asks for a photo with the car, Cobden instead volunteers a ride in it, but doesn’t insist on seatbelts. Does anyone at this point really think he is just going to bimble up that track?

This is a man offering joyrides to children in other people’s super cars that he is paid to look after, and not even taking the basic care to make sure they belt up. It screams ‘casual approach to safety’. He’s hardly Ian Huntley but his careless actions have inadvertently led to the death of someone’s child, albeit completely unintentionally. He really needs to stop trying to pull the wool.

Even if the court were to accept his defence of a jammed throttle:

1) He’s got a clutch, dip it
2) The seatbelt, and lack of use, is careless. He’s the responsible adult. Be responsible.

You are making alot of assumptions. Without all the facts i dont think solid opinion can be given something might come to light.

But this article was pretty informative in terms of time from the bridge to crash and how long he could of had to react or dip the clutch as you say.

He also said he was just running it along the farm essentially that's why he didn't wear a seatbelt.

http://www.petrolhedonistic.com/court-hears-eviden...

[number 46]

http://www.petrolhedonistic.com/court-hears-eviden...
[/quote]

I stand corrected, the evidence presented in the above article, clearly states that the car did a 360 barrel roll, with the post acting as a ramp. With nether of them wearing seatbelts, I would imagine that the poor kid fell out of the car as it rolled. Perhaps Cobden was restrained by the steering wheel as it rolled, hence him surviving. Interesting that the expert states that the car would have slowed to operate the nose lift to get over the humps either side of the bridge. Sounds very much like after the bridge he gave it the beans in 1st then 2nd, it probably started fishtailing, he hits the post, car gets airborne and thats that. I can't see his stuck throttle defence standing up at all. Seems to me that he was careless, as a posted stated earlier, no seat belts, not his car, probably showing off, driving a very high performance car beyond his ability, on a road that isn't really suitable for high speed demos. Not looking good for him.

[hyphen]

number 46 said:

http://www.petrolhedonistic.com/court-hears-eviden...

I stand corrected, the evidence presented in the above article, clearly states that the car did a 360 barrel roll, with the post acting as a ramp. With nether of them wearing seatbelts, I would imagine that the poor kid fell out of the car as it rolled. Perhaps Cobden was restrained by the steering wheel as it rolled, hence him surviving. Interesting that the expert states that the car would have slowed to operate the nose lift to get over the humps either side of the bridge. Sounds very much like after the bridge he gave it the beans in 1st then 2nd, it probably started fishtailing, he hits the post, car gets airborne and thats that. I can't see his stuck throttle defence standing up at all. Seems to me that he was careless, as a posted stated earlier, no seat belts, not his car, probably showing off, driving a very high performance car beyond his ability, on a road that isn't really suitable for high speed demos. Not looking good for him.

What a mess.

[silentbrown]

sjc said:

Sad sad story.
The lack of either of them wearing a seat belt makes me think originally that he wasn’t intending to do anything remotely silly, but ....

Presumably you still wear a seat belt even when you're not intending to do anything remotely silly?

[sjc]

silentbrown said:

sjc said:

Sad sad story.
The lack of either of them wearing a seat belt makes me think originally that he wasn’t intending to do anything remotely silly, but ....

Presumably you still wear a seat belt even when you're not intending to do anything remotely silly?

I’ve no idea what relevance anything I would do has to do with it.

[SJK]

number 46 said:

http://www.petrolhedonistic.com/court-hears-eviden...

I stand corrected, the evidence presented in the above article, clearly states that the car did a 360 barrel roll, with the post acting as a ramp. With nether of them wearing seatbelts, I would imagine that the poor kid fell out of the car as it rolled. Perhaps Cobden was restrained by the steering wheel as it rolled, hence him surviving. Interesting that the expert states that the car would have slowed to operate the nose lift to get over the humps either side of the bridge. Sounds very much like after the bridge he gave it the beans in 1st then 2nd, it probably started fishtailing, he hits the post, car gets airborne and thats that. I can't see his stuck throttle defense standing up at all. Seems to me that he was careless, as a posted stated earlier, no seat belts, not his car, probably showing off, driving a very high performance car beyond his ability, on a road that isn't really suitable for high speed demos. Not looking good for him.

Sadly I think you are right, I think they were both ejected but with the car being flung up on its right side and rolling that way, the young lad Alex would of been on that side as f50s are all LHD. The driver would of been more tipped out where as the boy had the momentum of the car acting like a armm the momentum he would of had before hitting the ground would of been higher I think.

Its heart wrenching to think about how a boys dream opportunity would end so badly so quickly, I have a picture when I was 13 standing next to a 355 my uncle won at work for a week. My smile was wider than my head, for it to all end up with a family torn from the loss of a child, another man having to live with the memory of all of this, his family potentially losing husband and dad for a whole and mostly Alex losing his life is horrible.