Masters of the obvious

In the field of expensively produced reports "scientifically proving" something that everyone already knew, the 1989 NHTSA report on "Sudden Acceleration Incidents", as chronicled by PJ O'Rourke, clearly stands out as the leader:

In the twinkling of an eye (by the standards of bureaucratic time, which is slower tan geologic time but more expensive than time spend with Madame Claude's grils in Paris) the thing was done. On March 7, 1989, the DOT-NHTSA-ODI-TSC-OPSAD-VRTC (you'd think the initials alone would be enough to slow down any rnaway cars) effort produced an eighty-one page report written by an eight-man group of engineering savants with more than fifty years of college among them. This document presented evidence from exhaustive experiment and analysis that proved what everybody who understands how to open the hood of a car had known all along about SAIs: "Pedal misapplications are the likely cause of these incidents."

Yes, the dumb buggers stepped on the gas instead of the brake . . . the truth was out at last. The government had released a huge report showing that there was no such thing as unintended acceleration in automobiles. Stand by for huge government reports on fairies stealing children and poker wealth gained by drawing to inside straights. Meanwhile cars did not fly away of their own accord. They could be safely left unattended. You can fold up the camp cot and quit spending nights in the garage keeping an eye on the family minivan.

However, it now has some competition:

Children who play sports video games on the Nintendo Wii burn more calories than they would playing regular video games, but not as many than if they played the actual sports, a new study shows.

Comments

It is bad form to misquote.

Posted by GinSlinger | December 31, 2007 2:45 PM

The auto report wasn't ridiculous. A jury blamed Audi for the actions of idiotic drivers. Do you think Audi didn't offer any testimony as to how a car works? Yet that testimony was seen as less convincing than the plaintiffs's sob stories and absolute conviction that they were right. Also, I'm guessing that the Audi lawyers had worse hair than the plaintiff's lawyers. The goverment had that report made because someone thought that the truth actually mattered. It didn't. Audi lost a great deal of their US market share over that one.

Posted by Bambi | December 31, 2007 3:15 PM

sounds like more reasons for zero-baseline budgeting...or, rather, could you imagine these guys circulating a Prospectus to raise funding?

Posted by MEH | December 31, 2007 5:02 PM

And as it turns out, some models of Fords with aftermarket accessories experience this. This was first discovered on police cars about ten years ago. The problem went on for many years because, despite many complaints, Ford engineers couldn't re-create the problem. That's because they only tested factory models i.e. without aftermarket parts (can't remember what they were, something to do with the electrical system, which makes sense given all the extra juice police cars need...)

I believe I first read about it in the New Yorker -- it has the sound of a Malcolm Gladwell piece -- but I can't find it online.

Posted by Derek Scruggs | December 31, 2007 5:26 PM

This is not a trivial matter, as it has figured in some high-dollar lawsuits. The odd, but not surprising, aspect of it is that the US government would invest money producing a report that some defendents in low-dollar civil suits can use to get them dismissed.

Today, the GOP supports the defense and Democrats the plaintiffs in the "tort-claims industry".

That this is not actually industry but, rather, bi-partisan concession-tending does not seem to have any place in public policy discourse.

Posted by John Robert BEHRMAN | December 31, 2007 5:33 PM

Although it may not be the most pressing question in the world, it doesn't seem to me to be wasted effort. Judging from the Times article, they were able to get solid numbers on how the Wii relates to the user's activity level, and put it into context between "real sports" and passivity. I'm not an advocate of replacing real activity with video games, but maybe this can be used as a jumping off point to make some game time more energetic.

Posted by Sefrankel | December 31, 2007 5:33 PM

can't remember what they were, something to do with the electrical system, which makes sense given all the extra juice police cars need

Probably engine electrical, not chassis electrical:

My guess (and I admit I'm speculating) is that some aftermarket computer had/has ignition timing advance which is overly sensitive to intake vacuum, and the brake booster (maybe oversized for cop brakes? Maybe badly made and leaky?) has an unusually large impact on that vacuum, leading to unnecessary timing advance and a little power surge when the brake is applied.

Can't possibly be very big, though.

Posted by Rob Lyman | December 31, 2007 6:49 PM

The study you cite is a spoof article from the British Medical Journal. They should probably stop doing these spoof issues, as they seem to get reported on quite often as serious studies. Language log reports on the phenomenon of these spoof articles being picked up in the news here:

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005246.html

Posted by William Bruntrager | December 31, 2007 7:17 PM

Come, Megan: you can't forget "Teen Sex Linked To Drugs And Alcohol, Reports Center For Figuring Out Really Obvious Things"

Posted by David Nieporent | December 31, 2007 10:34 PM

Doing rigorous studies of what everyone already knows produce a lot of obvious results, but every so often something obvious turns out to be completely wrong. It's a good thing we have scientists testing stuff we think is obvious, or we'd never find out about the false things common sense says are true.

Posted by Elliot Reed | January 1, 2008 11:55 AM

The reflex response is to label drivers who make a new garage door with their Audi as "idiots." While I agree that the sudden accelerations are driver error and not some occult defect in the motor or transmission, there is a bit more to it than say that people having these accidents are idiots.

There is this thing called "pilot-induced oscillation" or PIO -- Jack Broughton talks about it in "Thud Ridge" as well does Milton Thompson in "X-15" and "Flight Without Wings". The concept is that if you put a pilot "in the loop" controlling, say, the pitch axis of an airplane, that pilot becomes a control system element as much as any other, and the pilot could work the stick to counteract a dive, which would over correct and produce a climb, to which the pilot would again overcorrect and produce a steeper dive, resulting in a bobbing up and down these pilots called porpoising.

It is not simply a matter that the pilot is stupid and if the pilot knew how to apply the correct amount of control force that the plane would fly OK. If there is too much "gain" or amplification in the system relative to the time lags, a pilot-induced oscillation is what you get. The pilot's peripheral nervous system reflex loops become part of the control system in the manner that when the doctor raps your knee with that rubber hammer, your foot jerks forward.

Broughton wrote about how once one of these oscillations gets set up, the only way to break the loop is to "reconfigure the system" by letting go of the controls. Broughton, a devout Episcopalian, called it the "J.C." method after the prayer he would say asking the Lord to take over the controls when he let go.

In control theory, these kinds of responses of non-linear feedback systems are called limit cycles, and a limit cycle doesn't necessarily need to cycle -- it could go hard over in one direction until it hits the stops.

So what happens when you apply your foot to the wrong pedal? You think you are on the brake, so your central nervous system (CNS) sets up a reflex loop in your periperal nervous system (the reflex test at the doctor's office). If you happen to be on the gas, something tells you that you are speeding up instead of slowing down, so you feed in more of what you think is brake, only you speed up more, and before you know it there is a new door to the garage -- it can happen much faster than you can think, "oh, I pressed the wrong pedal, I better switch to brake."

A test drove a VW Quantum, a mechanical cousin to those Audis, and I thought the pedals were in a kind of goofy position. Among other reasons, I didn't buy the car because I thought the pedal layout would give me a back ache as I am prone to low back pain. I read that the pedal layout is meant to allow quicker transition from gas to brake (a safety feature to provide quicker reaction), but it is different from the typical clunky pedal layout most people are used to. I can see how someone could be on the wrong pedal.

This business, however, of being quick to label human factors issues of the operator being "an idiot" is not helpful. Soon after 9-11 there as an Airbus jet that crashed in Queens after take-off. The vertical stabilizer broke clean off, resulting in loss of control and a crash. This was scary because the Airbus has a carbon fiber instead of a conventional aluminum vertical stabilizer, and the thought that pilots now have to worry that aggressive use the controls could actually break something off is scary. But the pilot was faulted for making multiple, full-limit movement of the rudder pedals upon encountering wake turbulence from another jet.

Perhaps those large rudder movements were the consequence of a PIO. It is so easy to blame people for being idiots when the human factors questions are deeper than blaming a dead pilot for incompetence.

Posted by Paul Milenkovic | January 1, 2008 3:16 PM

Boy, aren't college-eggheads dumb!

Scientific studies are only valuable when they teach us something we didn't know already!

Why don't the gubmint realize that?

Obviously, they should only undertake a scientific study when it will produce unexpected results!

Sheesh, it's all a conspiracy by the looters and moochers to waste your hard-earned tax dollars!

Sheesh, anyone knows that!

Posted by Ayn-al Rand | January 2, 2008 2:35 AM

At the time, it wasn't known why the cars accelerated (like most people, I had assumed that the drivers hit the wrong pedal and didn't want to admit it). This was good enough reason to study the issue.

What is really perplexing is why it took 18 years to finish and publish the study.

Posted by Yancey Ward | January 2, 2008 11:35 AM

Children who play sports video games on the Nintendo Wii burn more calories than they would playing regular video games, but not as many than if they played the actual sports, a new study shows.

Having played 4 years of little league baseball, I can say with all honesty that I would be surprised if it burned more calories than playing Wii baseball.

Posted by Njorl | January 2, 2008 12:07 PM

"Although it may not be the most pressing question in the world, it doesn't seem to me to be wasted effort. Judging from the Times article, they were able to get solid numbers on how the Wii relates to the user's activity level, and put it into context between "real sports" and passivity. I'm not an advocate of replacing real activity with video games, but maybe this can be used as a jumping off point to make some game time more energetic.

Posted by Sefrankel | December 31, 2007 5:33 PM"

I'm not sure what is sadder, Megan thinking this study was real or you defending the fake study. The fact that a study can give you numbers is such a low bar Satan could limbo under it. If the University of Texas paid me $50 a day to measure the time frame and intensity of my farts, I could come up with numbers, run a statistical analysis and make some conclusions. If I was someone paying a student's UT tuition, I would be pissed about that. Besides, the technology in the Wii also has the effect that you don't even need to swing the controller like a bat, but can just flick your wrist. Basically, it's possible to play the Wii using no more energy than a round of lazy masturbation.

Posted by Reality Man | January 2, 2008 12:19 PM

I'm not sure what is sadder, Megan thinking this study was real or you defending the fake study.

It's not a "fake study", although Megan does miss its whimsical nature and it was certainly not "expensively produced".

That whole issue of BMJ is amusing and worth a look. (And freely available.)

Posted by JSinger | January 2, 2008 12:51 PM

Njorl,

Maybe, but in Wii baseball you don't sit on the bench the entire game.

Ok, that was mighty low of me, but I couldn't resist the opportunity.:~)

Posted by Yancey Ward | January 2, 2008 1:49 PM

Paul: But the "sudden acceleration" incidents did not involve an oscillation, they involved stomping the gas instead of the brakes. If you make that error, your car is going to go - and the only design change that would prevent that error from causing acceleration would also prevent your car from accelerating when you wanted it to go somewhere.

It's possible that the control locations could be redesigned to make that error less likely, but now you're throwing out a human interface design that's been universal across the auto industry ever since the Model T was retired and requiring every driver to learn a new interface - and for damn sure the tort lawyers would sue every time someone crashed because they forgot the new accelerator or brake location. Isn't it much simpler to require old folks that have both lost both the ability to tell which pedal they are pressing, and the ability to react to unexpected motion by moving their feet to the BRAKES instead of pressing harder on the GAS to turn in their license, before they make other mistakes that kill someone besides themselves?

Posted by markm | January 2, 2008 5:29 PM

1. An oscillation, or more strictly, a limit cycle, does not have to wiggle back and forth -- a "ramp up to a hard limit and stay there" response is also called a limit cycle in the engineering textbooks.

2. Never called for a elimination of the conventional gas-brake pedal arrangement. I called into question, however, whether the Audi, in fact, followed that standard layout based on my experience test driving a VW platform-cousin. It is the Audi that was non-standard, both from the standpoint of pedal alignment relative to the driver's seated position as well as the lack of the gas-brake hight differential, cues that help differentiate brake from gas but also slow down the switch from gas to brake.

3. Everyone blames this on old people with diminished reflexes or mental or physical capacity. This could happen to you. Really. Once you have your foot on the wrong pedal, for whatever reason, and set up that reflex arc in your peripheral nervous system, you can make that new door in the garage so fast you won't know what hit you.

I don't know how to explain this any better. If you happen to be on the brake when you happen to be on the gas, you would think the lurch forward would set up a thought process, gee, this has the wrong effect, let me switch pedals and try to stop the car. It doesn't work that way -- that thought process takes too long even among the best of us because it involves a CNS loop with cognitive decision making, and your PNS loop through your spinal cord will work too quickly and make that new garage door.

The closest I came to that was in drivers ed -- my intention was to front out of a parking space but the transmission selector was still in R. As I tipped in some gas, there was a backward lurch of the car, a taking of the Lord's name in vain by my instructor, who jammed with all his might on the second brake pedal. I shrugged this incident off, saying that I had model trains and never knew if I had the direction switch in the right direction, and if the train was going the wrong way, I would simply stop, change the switch and try again. My instructor took a dim view that I would drive the way I operated model trains, and while I still think I would have caught the mis-selection of direction and not crashed, the lurch I got from the gas pedal tip in strongly suggested that I was at least initially in a PIO.

People keep saying "if you are not stopping, have the sense to move your foot to the brake." If you think you are already on the brake, that won't help, you will simply press harder. Rather quickly. Before you have a chance to react. This could happen to you.

Posted by Paul Milenkovic | January 3, 2008 12:08 PM

Maybe, but in Wii baseball you don't sit on the bench the entire game.

I can't comment on baseball, but I will say that my single season of girls softball in the 5th grade was the most boring of my life. I hate to say this, but 5th grade girls who can't pitch, catch, or bat have VERY long and uneventful games. I wasn't riding pine, but I still spent hours nearly immobile.

Posted by Christina | January 3, 2008 2:50 PM

It is distressing to be in a situation, involved in a sudden acceleration incident and then accident with nowhere to turn and no way to defend yourself. Unless of course you are critically injured or in turn critically injure someone else, no one or agency is there to protect your interests. I have a family, 3 kids...I could not afford to risk keeping a vehicle that no one can ascertain a defect but on 2 occassions has acted up and now caused an accident. I could not pass this problem on to other unsuspecting people. Ford - in its infinite wisdom suggested that I install a data recorder so that the next ime it happens, we can understand what went wrong, thus I may kill someone, or hurt someone but I'll at least have an explanation.....No thanks Ford...well my dilema is such that I traded the vehicle - 2007 f150 4000 miles back to the original dealer...got hammered on the trade in...got hammered on the transaction for the 2008 as it was march...no incentives and the stiffs knew they had me over a barrel. but this vehicle is on the road, and while I sleep at night, Ford puts the general public at risk by putting their head in the sand.

I am not an 80 yr old man, confusing the accelorator for the brake...the incident happened 2 times in a 24 hr period...I have driven trucks for years and this is a very frustrating situation to be in. If anyone has any ideas I would welcome the input. I sought nothing form Ford other than to replace my vehicle and keep me whole in the transaction. They have no clue in terms of customer service and common business sense.

Posted by john dobek | May 5, 2008 8:28 PM