This will not help Toyota's warm and fuzzy image. What I sort of don't get is, why didn't they just shift into neutral, slam on the emergency lights, pull the parking brake, and coast to a stop? I'm sure that this is a perfectly idiotic question, and I will immediately be set straight by the car buffs. If so, please enlighten me.
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There was a woman on 60 minutes years ago who killed a man because her (poorly maintained) UHaul had the accelerator get stuck. She stood on the brake but still slammed into him.
They never asked your question, and I haven't watched 60 minutes since.
She stood on the brake
I think it was PJ O'Rourke who wondered if people in that situation were instead standing on the accelerator.
Most of the claims of unintended acceleration do have at least some element of driver error. This one appears to be a quite real problem, though.
Unintended acceleration was an Audi 5000 supposed problem back in the '80s. The evidence pointed to driver error. The 5000 had European close set gas and brake pedals which allow heel and toe driving. Heel and toe technique is where you brake with the left heel and blip the throttle with your left toes so you can match engine revs while down shifting. Most euro cars were built that way and most US performance cars. But the 5000 was marketed to the caddy and buick crowd that were used to having the gas and brake 6 inches apart. So little old ladies would hit the gas and brake at the same time and then panic. The whole scare almost bankrupted Audi in the US. Doubt this will hurt Toyota that badly but does bring up a good point about those keyless ignitions.
Replying to Drew - Left foot? Huh? with which foot are you hitting the clutch?
why didn't they ...
The driver panicked. Either that, or he was never taught that he could do those things. Possibly both.
I agree with wiredog. Panic is the likely explanation.
Exactly. Unless you have formulated this plan in advance, most people are going to panic and attempt to brake the car without putting it into neutral or attempt to dislodge the accelerator. In my opinion, this plan should be taught to all beginning drivers, but even then, people are going to panic.
This is not an uncommon situation in wintry conditions, at least with rear wheel drive vehicles. The engine is cold, and spun up by the computer. In drive, the rear wheels drive, the front wheels locked and sliding. It takes once in the beginning of winter to get the instincts back, put it in neutral.
If you had never experienced such a thing, only very quick thinking people would figure out what to do.
Derek
The calculation needed to do this is difficult to make in practice. Unless you KNOW you're going to crash, you wouldn't want to shift to neutral with the accelerator stuck because you'll blow the engine and watch $20K disappear. Then, by the time you KNOW you're going to crash, it may be too late. And you may be unpracticed, panicking, etc.
I can't think of any car made in recent times that does not have a rev limiter. Bumping an engine off the rev limiter is not good for it, but it will not blow it up.
Ken is right.
As part of their testing Toyota test engineers have the engine bounce of the red line for two weeks to check for wear - little is usually found.
"... a fact that was relayed via cell phone just before the crash ... What I sort of don't get is, why didn't they just shift into neutral, slam on the emergency lights, pull the parking brake, and coast to a stop?"
Perhaps the cell phone might have contributed to the accident(s).
Presuming that they didn't have time to dial the cell phone, we are led to the conclusion that they were talking while driving.
Maybe they were using a hands free device.
Maybe they weren't.
But if I had to guess, and I had only three factoids in front of me:
#1, they installed floor mats improperly. (huh?)
#2, they didn't have the presence of mind to disengage the engine from the wheels, by moving that little lever to "N," and
#3, they were talking on a cell phone before and during the incident.
I don't think you need Bayesian analysis here...
Correction - three passengers, as well as the driver.
There were four passengers in the car. I expect one of them, not the driver, made the call.
Yup. And they could have simply turned the key and shut off power.
No key-- it was a keyless ignition, and you had to hold the button for three seconds to turn the car off in motion. The car was a loaner, so the driver was even less likely to know that than if it were his car.
I know that before I operate a piece of equipment I'm unfamiliar with, I learn how to use it. YMMV.
I'm sure one of the questions you ask when borrowing a car is, "How do you turn of the car when it's moving?" Because that situation comes up very often and is in the front of your mind.
Thomas, most people assume that they're familiar with cars. This sounds like one of those things that you wouldn't know you're ignorant of until too late.
Mo,
One of the things I asked before using a chainsaw is, "How do I turn it off if shit happens?" I don't understand why knowing how to operate a vehicle properly is such a foreign concept that you would shrug when someone mentions it. Don't get me wrong - it's tragic - but this particular crash was avoidable by knowing how to operate the vehicle.
Alsadius,
Getting into a car without a key (and thus without a known method for turning off the engine) would give me pause re: knowing how to operate it. Again, others may differ.
Uh, Megan, your "just before the crash" link is going to the census worker killing for me.
I once had a very elderly neighbor "mistake the brake for the gas" and drive through the back of his garage, through his back yard, over a concret retaining wall into the pond behind his house. He was fine, the same could not be said for either the garage or the Buick.
My grandmother did about the same thing before we were able to get the car keys out of her hands. Backed out of the driveway and hit the gas instead of the brake at the road and then shot across two lanes of traffic and hit a tree. Thankfully no one was hurt.
"mistake the brake for the gas"
Meant - "mistake the gas for the brake"
Switching the key off also works (unless the car is new and expensive enough to have an electronic proximity key rather than an ordinary ignition switch).
So, another vote for some combination of driver panic and lack of training. The idea that the engine can be disengaged from delivering power to the wheels, by some mechanism other than releasing the accellerator, is relatively low on most drivers' radar -- especially if they have never driven with a manual gearbox.
There was a similar observation in a recent Car & Driver article in which a driving instructor at a racing school commented that most people, given a choice between cornering a vehicle at 0.4g and hitting a tree, will choose the tree. Panic and lack of training, again.
They said they couldn't switch it off, which may have meant there was a button and they didn't know how long they had to hold the button down.
Right. It was, technically, a Lexus wasn't it? I think Neutral was the only option here. Even so...
And I loved that Car & Driver article. To be fair, most people have no idea what a .4G turn feels like. It's easily accomplished by any car on the road (even an SUV), but it does feel a lot worse than it is.
For a long time the mark of a "true sports car" was being able to pull 1G in a turn. Those that have done it claim that it feels as if your brain is going to extrude through your ear...
Sorry but 1G isn't anywhere near that level of brain extraction - more like standing on your head. I've pulled 6Gs in an F14 fighter jet and that is brain extracting.
Oh, it's nowhere near brain extraction, but to someone who isn't a fighter pilot, it'd probably feel like it was.
According to the linked article, the driver was a California Highway Patrol officer (off-duty). Also, "Investigators do not know if Saylor tried to shift the car into neutral or if he tried to shut off the engine." He did, however, have the emergency flashers on.
Really? Wow. You would think a CHP...
They burned out the brakes by riding them while at wide open throttle (If this happens to you press the brake pedal to the floor and come to a complete stop! Do not use them to maintain speed).
The car had push button start. It required one to hold the button for 3 seconds.
Not sure why they couldn't shift into neutral. Maybe there's some sort of interlock.
That's why motorcycles have a big red engine kill switch on the handle bar. I'm surprised to hear that car with push button ignition do not, seems like a no brainer.
That said, panicked drivers do silly things. In an emergency, the brain goes with what it knows, and doesn't really thinks about the proper course of action. So its a training thing, if drivers practices a stuck throttle exercise even back when they were going thru drivers ed, this probably would not happen.
The idea that the engine can be disengaged from delivering power to the wheels, by some mechanism other than releasing the accellerator
In high school we (in our un-PC way) referred to this as "Mexican overdrive." Of course, we lived near several mountain passes, so we had occasion to actually do it once in a while.
Is that the same as a "Georgia overdrive"?
Going back to the main issue: I don't think we have enough info to make a definitive conclusion, but if Toyota is actually selling a car that requires any more than one flick of the wrist to turn off the engine, and any more than one flick of the wrist to put the tranny in neutral, then I think they deserve to be sued big time; that would be a mind-numbingly stupid design.
I own one of the vehicles in question. Neutral requires a flick of the wrist; turning it off requires a three-second hold on the power switch.
The three second hold strikes me as a dumb idea. If you're turning off your engine when the car is moving, chances are it's an emergency. Three second is an eternity in most driving emergencies.
"What I sort of don't get is, why didn't they just shift into neutral, slam on the emergency lights, pull the parking brake, and coast to a stop?"
In an emergency situation there are any number of obvious solutions people will overlook, especially if they are panicking. Likewise, though it may seem (and is) irrational, the impulse to avoid or minimize damage to the vehicle is strong enough that the driver will ignore many solutions to acheive that goal. The fact that the brakes were on fire is evidence of this. The last time Car and Driver did an article on unintended acceleration, they noted that there was not one vehicle they tested in which the brakes could not stop the vehicle with the transmission engaged and the engine at full throttle. Using less than full braking in an effort to control speed will, on the other hand, cause the brakes to overheat and quit working.
In aviation, these behaviors are overcome by teaching pilots "boldface" checklist items that are memorized and practiced so that in emergency situations, a pilot will perform them by rote instead of convincing themselves that something won't work because of erroneous or incomplete information. It might be a good idea to bring that philosophy to driving.
While I agree that people panic and do irrational things in extreme situations, i've yet to drive a vehicle that I cannot override the engine with the brakes. I also agree if the brakes were applied just to maintain speed that they probably cooked off and became useless.
The problem is, most people don't treat driving lie flying. It's a casual activity, not something you spend thousands of hours training for. We as a society seem to prefer tens of thousands of deaths per year to spending that much effort learning to drive well.
Fred Flintstone never had this problem.
Yes one faulty floor mat means the end of Toyota. Megan - you fail.
Actually, you fail -- at both research, and reading comprehension. They're recalling about 3.8 million vehicles that had these floormats. It was on top of the news last night, and probably will be again tonight. Megan described that as a "PR disaster", which it is. "The end of Toyota" is your hyperbole.
I really don't remember this type of situation being taught in my drives ed course.
Seems like they should. This is a bit of freakish situation. But breaks do unexpectedly go out.
They never would on a well-maintained car UNLESS someone cuts your brake lines in a bid to assassinate you. In that case, you're truly fucked anyways and the nanny-state can't save you.
The driver was a CHP officer. I'm guessing that they have some training in how to handle 'emergency' situations.
As mentioned before, the vehicle had a push button ignition so turning the engine off was not as simple as turning the key.
The vehicle was a loaner from the dealership, so it is possible that the driver may not have been completely familiar with the operation of the vehicle.
The 911 call was made by a passenger in the back seat.
Given that the floor mats were recalled in 2007, I would hope that a DEALERSHIP would a) have installed the mats properly or b) replaced the dangerous mats with the new ones.
This story is really a tragic reminder of the fact that driving a car is an innately dangerous activity.
Like they say, in an accident, presence of mind is good but absence of body is better. Does the anchoring of the pedals matter? In my jeep, for instance, the accelerator pedal hangs from somewhere. I have all-weather mats that move around a lot and at times get in the way of pressing the pedal, not in the way of releasing it. I once drove my friend's acura where the pedal was rising from the floor of the car and it felt weird.
Toyotas are overrated. They are generally well made but no better than a Ford. They will be able to coast on their reputation for a lot of years though.
Immediately upon buying my Tacoma, I noticed that Toyota had apparently decided to go cheap on the floormats with no reliable mechanism for keeping the branded floormats from sliding around. Driving a manual transmission that requires me to floor the clutch to start the vehicle has made me acutely aware of the tendency of these mats to interfere with pedal operation. In my case it is just a minor annoyance, but an annoyance nonetheless.
Every other vehicle I've ever owned had the little plastic spikes on the underside of the mats to give them stability. It's a terrible tragedy that people died because of this issue, but I am glad that Toyota is finally serious about fixing this problem.
I just checked my '09 Tacoma, and the driver's floormat is held in place by a couple of plastic clips that project up from the floor through holes in the mat. I would assume that only OEM floormats have the holes.
Yeah I have the holes, but no plastic clips. I have no idea where they went, if they were ever there.
They aren't little things. They project high enough off the floor that I catch my heel on them fairly frequently when entering and exiting. I don't think the clips would cause your foot to jam accelerator since they are closer to the seat than the pedals with the hook facing the seat. My guess is they were never installed. If the dealer gave/sold you the slick floor mats without installing the clips that would be a problem.
Another possible deceleration option: cruise control? Hard to figure out if it's not your car, obviously.
Next time you are in a car, floor the gas and try to slow yourself with the cruise control
This actually happened to me in my Saab. The floor-mat jammed the accelerator to the floor. Thankfully, it was a manual transmission, so I pushed the clutch in and then turned off the car.
But in our desire to automate all these human functions, we also eliminate the common-sense solutions that can save us when things go tragically wrong.
It's almost like something from King Lear: you try to do the right thing, but the very thing you do comes back to hurt you later on.
I'm rather certain that Toyota, by publicizing the problem and recalling all the cars and fixing them and settling with the families will turn a PR disaster into a case-study on correct crisis management. Same news cycle, aggressive response, no stonewalling. There's a right way to do this. Inaba is no fool.
If you shift a Prius into neutral, the engine stops.
On almost any car made the brake has more authority than the accelerator. Think about it. They can go from 0 to 60 in, what, 6 seconds and 400 or 500 feet if you have a real muscle car? And the brakes can stop from 60 to 0 in about 120 feet, or a second and a half.
-dk
The brakes generally can stop the car under full accelleration, but as someone else noted above, the problem is that people follow their instinct to try and execute a controlled stop rather than a panic stop. The brakes quickly overheat from kinetic friction, and are then effectively useless.
why didn't they just shift into neutral, slam on the emergency lights, pull the parking brake, and coast to a stop?
Obviously because they really wanted to crash and maybe die.
Turning off ignition, locks the steering wheel unless one remembers to turn the key again. Many cars have a protection to prevent engine from shifting into neutral when rpm is high.
Many cars have a protection to prevent engine from shifting into neutral when rpm is high.
I highly doubt that - do you have any examples?
"the company is having to recall millions of cars because four people were killed in a crash that apparently involved improperly installed floor mats."
Um, no. The problem with the floors mats is their design, not their "improperly installed" status. In fact, they are telling people to remove the (removable as opposed to installed) mats.
"What I sort of don't get is, why didn't they just shift into neutral, slam on the emergency lights, pull the parking brake, and coast to a stop?"
Allow me to clear up your confusion. The mats are causing the accelerator pedal to get stuck, not causing it to "stop working." It works just fine. In fact, it's working when you don't want it to. It's working so well, before you know it, you're going so fast you just might crash.
This doesn't really answer the question. Moreover, there was some discussion of the possibility that the Lexus had the wrong floor mats in it, not merely that they malfunctioned.
I just hope if this ever happens to you, that you use your super-human accident-prevention powers to, what was it again, "shift into neutral, slam on the emergency lights, pull the parking brake, and coast to a stop."
And some people call you a glibertarian? Why, whatever for?
Taking off from the conversation Shane and I had above I do think it's an installation issue.
The OEM floor mats have a slick underside and appear to be designed to be used only when the vehicle has the appropriate hardware to hold the mat in place.
The mats will probably work just fine if they installed correctly, i.e. with the proper hardware and not simply thrown down on the floor since they don't have anything to hold them in place. It does seem a bit unusual to require hardware for floor mats, of all things, so you might have a point that the design is questionable.
It sounds to me like dealers are selling the slick OEM mats without installing the hardware to keep them in place.
The one part of the story that sounds bogus now is the claim that Toyota doesn't know how to fix the problem. I think they know pretty well how to fix it but haven't figured out if it's going to be cheaper to get dealers to install the clips or provide new floor mats that don't slide.
The "floor mat" issue has been in the alternative press for a while. See http://www.houstonpress.com/2009-04-23/news/wild-rides/1 for a story covered in the Houston Press, a local weekly. The story concentrates on Prius models that have had this runaway problem, which Toyota said was due to "improperly installed" floormats. The owners think otherwise. The article suggests that the control system in the Prius is to blame.
Geez Loueez, Megan -- read the articles you cite before you start pontificating.
"Witnesses saw flames coming from the front and rear tires of the speeding 2009 Lexus ES 350 before it crashed Aug. 28 in Santee, suggesting “long, constant heavy braking,” said Sgt. Scott Hill, the lead sheriff's investigator."
If the wheels were locked (or even they were intermittently freed by the anti-lock mechanisms) the driver had already defeated the runaway engine. Shifting to neutral or turning off the engine (or pulling/pushing the emergency brake) would have had no additional effect.
The car was already moving too fast for conditions when the driver reacted. Sure, a stuck accelerator pedal may have been the underlying cause, but the driver's belated reaction was the proximate cause.
I'm not an expert, but if the car was moving at 120 mph at the time of impact, doesn't that suggest that the wheels were not locked (and the runaway accelerator not defeated)?
Well, if "flames [were] coming from [both] the front and rear tires", it means the brakes were working and were being applied at maximum (once the wheels lock, the brakes can do no more).
And, the only way flames can come from the tires is from skidding (wheels locked).
If the report said the tires had blown and he was driving on the rims, then it would be a different story.
Brakes can ALWAYS overcome the engine on modern cars. The stories of Audis having sudden surges of acceleration were all due to the operator hitting the gas instead of the brake pedal.
There's just no obvious way for the car to have reached top speed if the driver applied the brakes when he first detected the problem -- if the brakes were working. The reports that the tires were afire suggests the brakes were working properly, at least at impact.
And, the only way flames can come from the tires is from skidding (wheels locked).
Not at all, if he road the brakes (rather than braking to a complete stop) they would have overheated and stoped working. If you ever tried this on your own car, used the gas and the brake at the same time, you'd soon find the brake disks red hot and not working.
Ride you brakes long enough and this would happen:
http://image.automotive.com/f/techarticles/drivetrain/9042188+pheader/131_0708_03_z+4x4_disc_brakes+red_hot.jpg
Actually, this is evidence of the driver having applied intermediate pressure to the pedal for a period of time rather than attempting a true panic stop. He probably instinctively tried to slow the vehicle down rather than stalling it outright, and by the time he realized it wasn't going to work, the brakes were beyond their means. The brakes were clearly not "locked" since the wheels were still turning.
Brakes under motion achieve their effect through kinetic friction; once the system overheats, additional friction merely continues to heat the brake hardware without slowing the vehicle, and can also cause compressible vapor bubbles to form in the brake lines.
Megan's point was, why did he leave the engine engaged after realizing it was out of control? The answer seems to be an unfamiliar vehicle and, very probably, panic. Her reference to the emergency brake was an erroneous belief (note the strike-through text) that the main brakes had stopped working immediately, rather than after being overheated.
I'm not an expert, but if the car was moving at 120 mph at the time of impact, doesn't that suggest that the wheels were not locked
In this situation you need to slam on the brakes until you come to a complete stop. At some point just before you stop, the engine RPM will fall too low and the engine will stall out.
In this situation, rather than brake to a complete stop, he probably road the brakes until they overheated and stopped working and the car began to accelerate out of control.
This would also have rendered the emergency brake useless, right?
Depends. All vehicles with rear drum brakes and some vehicles with rear disc brakes will meachanically actuate the rear brakes directly. However, many cars with rear disc brakes will use a miniature drum brake housed inside the disc rotor assembly to serve as the emergency brake.
The emergency brake won't do much if the main brakes have failed because the brake system is literally on fire, but if the brakes failed from some other cause (as Megan initially thought), you can stop the vehicle, albeit slowly, and provided the engine is disengaged.
At some point just before you stop, the engine RPM will fall too low and the engine will stall out.
As I drive a manual transmission I may be in error. I'm not sure how an automatic transmission with a torque converter would work in this situation - the engine might not stall out. However, once at a complete stop the brakes wont overheat and even with an engine straining against the torque converter you should be ok until the police/fire department arrive.
The key is always to brake as hard as you can to a complete stop and hold the car stopped until help arrives.
Well, as a person who learned to drive on a stick, I'd have put it in neutral. Maybe we should outlaw automatic transmissions?
"What a PR disaster for Toyota"
I disagree this will be a PR disaster for Toyota, and I'm curious exactly why you think it will. The overwhelming majority of the public is going to have the same reaction you did - why didn't they just shift into neutral - and regard this as either overcaution on Toyota's part or overkill on the government's. If the former, I actually think it WILL help Toyota's "warm and fuzzy image", to the extent they have one.
What I sort of don't get is, why didn't they just shift into neutral, slam on the emergency lights, pull the parking brake, and coast to a stop?
Heck, why not just put it reverse? That will shut off the engine. That does still work, doesn't it?
Any modern automatic will not shift into reverse while the vehicle is moving forward even if the driver requests the gear. It might disengage the active gear, but then again, neutral definitely does.
Interesting - having been in similar (but not nearly so extreme) situations I can accept that rational thinking was out the window once everything went pear-shaped.
Adrenaline does a lot of things to cognitive processes, manual dexterity, etc. Time goes discontinuous and manual dexterity is severly and negatively impacted. This is not just my experience, BTW - I just ran across a study done of how stress affected police officers in shooting events which included a quite memorable quote from one of the subjects about "beear cans drifting past his head labeled "Federal" on the bottom". (Federal is a popular ammunition manufacturer - he was watching the casings from his partner's gun fly past).
It is pretty easy to reconstruct what happened.
accelerator jams
brakes still work (otherwise how did they overheat?) so driver brakes while trying to pull up accelerator with toe
brakes fade because they have been operating against the engine too long (too much kinetic energy converted to heat, heat causes friction to fall precipitously) (trust me, I know about brakes)
driver panics, realizing too late he should have braked to a stop right away instead of maintaining speed while trying to unjam the accelerator.
driver thinks to shift to neutral or turn off key, tries to turn off key because he doesn't want to pay for the Lexus engine on a loaner.
damn car has some stupid pushbutton. push. push. push. what's wrong with keys anyway? Screams from back seat are seriously rattling driver.
crash.
I HATE crap like keyless ignition.
Toyota recall and apology come too late for Redwood City man and San Jose family. See http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_13484932?source=most_viewed&nclick_check=1
After Guadalupe Gomez's 2007 Toyota Camry careened out of control, mysteriously accelerating to more than 100 mph on a San Jose highway, no one quite believed his story that the engine simply surged on its own when it smashed into a Honda Accord, killing its driver in a burst of flames. Now, they do.
... Gomez was behind the wheel of the Camry when it suddenly accelerated while he was driving southbound on Interstate 280. He tried to kill the engine as he dodged traffic on the busy thoroughfare — pushing the ignition button, kicking the accelerator and changing gears. But his new black Camry would not stop...
Shortly after the crash, Gomez's brother told the Mercury News that his brother had tried to brake and threw the car in neutral as it weaved through traffic for miles, clipping another car before striking Johnson's Honda.
Toyota is now warning owners that if they think their vehicle is accelerating out of control, they should check to see whether their floor mat is under the pedal. If a driver can't remove the floor mat, Toyota advises drivers to step on the brake pedal with both feet until the vehicle slows and then try to put it into neutral and switch the ignition to accessory power. For vehicles with engine start and stop buttons, Toyota said the engine can be shut off by holding the button down for three seconds.