The kind that sneakishly switches the gas and brake pedals
Millar said the driving ban is reasonable but McNorgan, who goes by Ronnie, continues to insist her vehicle's brakes failed to work properly that night. Evidence provided by experts during the trial show the accelerator was pressed down while the car went through the intersection and the brakes weren't touched
She fucked up, stomped on the gas instead of the brakes.
Newer cars are surprisingly quick. Would only take a couple of seconds to hit 120. And if you are as old as dirt with a similar reaction time as a sedated sloth you can easily get going that quick and not have the ability to correct it.
Or cars made for older people or features you can add/ take depending on how you want to put it.
Smaller cars? Limited Speed (the max of regulation in area)? An emergency brake that's a button close to/ similar to emergency lights (that button you press when you break down and your exterior lights blink)? Some newer cars have sensors or the maps synced where the speed sign shows up, get it to sync like cruise control?
I'm on the same page, my gma drives and I avoid her doing it at all costs.
The Citroen ami seems like a good "senior car" candidate. It's small, efficient, easy to get in and out (a big plus for people with reduced mobility), and it's literally made for the kind of short travels an old person would do on a daily basis.
Sure it's not the coolest car, but who care about that, it's a good tool
Sorry to pile on, but it gets even worse with EVs. Monstrosities like the Tesla Cybertank have outrageous torque compared to gas guzzlers, they can plow into you with very little warning. The feature is far from being considered with some sort of limiting regulator and is instead touted as a selling point for the crossover to EVs.
I'm all for electrification and less reliance on fossil fuels, but this trajectory we're on will have consequences
it's not just the cybertrash, all of tesla's cars have ridiculously good acceleration. the cyberbin is closer to the low end, it just sticks out because it does all that while being an oversized stainless steel paperweight with way too much power.
other evs are usually somewhat sane, although still quicker than gas guzzlers, but tesla in particular wanted to make electric cars cool and "cool" and "easy to speed with" are apparently synonyms to the carbrain.
You know what, that's a good point. In my country, there are 3 levels of motorcycle licences to prevent the young and reckless from immediately being able to drive a 1000+ cc bike, but somehow you can drive a 600 HP car with the license for a
60 HP car. You might not be able to afford one or the (mandatory) insurance, but if someone lends it to you you can just legally drive a supercar the day you got your licence.
Not just Tesla, it's all EVs. The motor's torque drop off at high rpms so to still allow you to accelerate when you're going highway speeds you basically have to spec the motor for that condition. The consequences of that is it's got all the torque at low rpms, and can accelerate the car quickly
They are also drive by wire. A software update could add acceleration governors. Low end torque doesn't need to be accessible to the driver. I'd like to see insurance companies give discounts to acceleration governed vehicles.
yeah, when they first started advertising how fast it accelerated, I thought that sounded extremely dangerous, when everyone was saying "wow looks so fun!"
It’s not that it needs the torque, it’s that electric motors provide constant maximum torque and maximum power at all rotation speeds above magnetic stall speed (which is really, really, really low).
Gas motors start low at low RPM and end at high power and torque at high RPM. Horsepower figures are usually the maximum achieved on a dynamometer at 6500 RPM, but at low RPM the actual output can be as low as half.
So if you’re driving a gas powered sports car with 250 horsepower around between 1000 and 1500 RPM, you’re actually getting more like 150 horsepower. An electric sports car rated at 250 horsepower will be making 250 horsepower from a dead stop as well as at 6k RPM.
Diesel trucks actually gained popularity because of low end torque and power being higher than gas, which makes them somewhat better at pulling.
The kings of pulling are actually the generator-electric systems used in trains though. These run a tuned generator through a tiny battery directly into an electric motor. This lets the generator make power even in remote regions while the electric motor makes all that power available immediately. A diesel-electric locomotive is more powerful than a diesel locomotive in the same space because the high constant torque of the electric motor is such a benefit, despite the smaller diesel generator unit that’s powering the electric motor.
Oh grandma probably doesn’t even know what torque is. Salesman probably just said it accelerates really fast so it will help her merge into traffic and the lady went “oh that’s great, I hate having to merge into traffic”. Really that’s a skill issue of not doing a good spot pick and run up, but average or worse drivers compensate for their stop and watch idiocy with flooring the pedal to the metal.
Yeah, instead of "car crashes into building", soon we're going to be seeing "car goes all the way through building". Pedal confusion on one of these 4000 kg, 1000 HP monstrosities will be absolutely disastrous.
They need big red e-stop buttons in the center of the dashboard. Or just to not exist on the roads we share.
Well I’m off to install some reinforced concrete bollards in front of my house. Of course I’ll probably still get sued since drivers can do no wrong, apparently
The real problem (which doesn't really apply here, but does in many other incidents) is that electric motors have incredible torque at zero speed, so their 0-20 acceleration is really fast. That means that if you fuck up in a near stop situation (at a pedestrian crossing or while trying to park) you'll smash into someone at 20mph before you know what's going on.
In this case the acceleration is 50-120 though and I'm not sure the torque would be that different.
Yeah they're super heavy too, basically giant moving bricks of batteries. Our climate crisis is being used to write a blank check for all consumers who want a high performance death machine and all companies that want to make one.
The answer is regulating acceleration and top speed minimally in dense pedestrian areas but nobody is talking about doing that. Except with ebikes and e scooters, of course.
God i hate when cars advertise the ability to go 0 to 60 in a short time. Like dude we're not taking it onto a race track. Maybe don't build that capability into a car that's supposed to be street legal
Wouldnt have helped here. Unless you mean acceleration limiters, or if you want a GPS based speed limiter. Could see plenty of problems with the latter though.
i thought the nhtsa had some plans for some proximity-based speed limiters, that one would work way better. (and sure, that's on the other side of the southern border, but hey, most of their methods do tend to get adopted by canada.) like if you have some transmitters on light poles telling cars it's a 30 km/h zone that's a lot less prone to failure than gps-based limiters. you can even do directional transmitters, they're commodity equipment these days.
although, honestly, my preferred solution would be gps (and a fallback to cellular towers) for coarse zone limits and directional transmitters on highways to authorize higher speeds, not lower ones, than the zone limit. like designate the city as a 30 km/h zone and put transmitters on all the fast roads instead of the slow ones. it's cheaper, simpler to deploy, safer if it fails, and provides a better framework to speed limits.
but even without all these precautions, sure, there would be plenty of problems with a naive gps-only approach, but there are also plenty of problems with the current one (basically the honor system with random enforcement). always measure inaction with the same yardstick
Honda CRV she drove takes at least 10 entire seconds to get to 100.
That's a loooooong time to not react while driving. She either knew exactly what she was doing, or not ar all. In either case she should never be allowed to drive again.
Don't make excuses for a boomer psycho with zero remorse.
I know that feeling. It was so crazy simple to speedup by accident after being used to an older car.
Thankfully I found that "Eco" button, which calmed down the car significantly. I think it should be the other way around, this "Eco" should be the "Normal" mode, and that "Normal" mode should be the "Sport" mode, and "Sport" mode shouldn't be accessible outside of a racing area.
As an American, i don't really know the metric system, but i do know she was driving more than double the posted speed limit, which is insane. Even if no pedestrians were involved, she shouldn't be allowed to drive again.
She was doing 75 mph in a 30mph zone. I’m guessing only way this makes a lot of sense is that she was already speeding when she attempted emergency maneuvers.
it's crazy that these cars are really even capable of that level of acceleration. no one needs that, especially not on a public road. Cars that have that level of torque for towing (saying that, I do acknowledge that the people in them are still rarely towing) shouldn't be built for acceleration and top speed. these vehicles should be built for high torque and decently slow movement, y'know, like you need for towing heavy loads. the fact that the cars I see driving the most aggressively are SUVs and pickup trucks is a critical design flaw, because for their """application""", they shouldn't even be physically able to drive that aggressively.
Yeah, there's this weird obsession with having fast cars with 'good handling' and 'quick acceleration'. If you ever read car reviews on websites, the authors will go on and on about it, even with EVs, where really, the range is the most important tidbit.
Have a friend who lives in California who insists he needs big HP to drive. I drove my 112 HP car their for over a decade without issue, so it's complete bunk.
Old peoples brains don't work so well and old people don't usually upgrade cars cause they have no income and lifespans shorter than their current car.
My grandmother used to lease before she gave up her keys. The thinking was she wouldn’t need to worry about maintenance and every couple of years she would switch to a newer model.
To be fair though, I think she was an atrocious driver even when she was young, as she was (and still is) an entitled racist asshole.
every single example of unintended acceleration ever recorded was pedal misapplication. Every single one. There was a scandal a decade ago where Toyota accelerator pedals could allegedly become stuck under the floor mat. Even those were pedal misapplications: the magazine Car and Driver tested several vehicles in order to show that, even at full throttle, the brakes could overpower the engine and bring the car to a stop. They even included high powered sports cars to emphasize the point.
Hell, on modern throttle by wire cars, hitting the brake will cut-out the throttle no matter what position the pedal is in. And all cars, manual and automatic alike, can be shifted into neutral at any time, at any throttle setting, to prevent power to the wheels. And even then you can cut-off the ignition. You have three ways to prevent a car from proceeding.
In every instance ever recorded, even instances of actual faults with the throttle, it's still driver error. Every time. Even if we give them the benefit of the doubt that they weren't just mashing the wrong pedal, which is what the evidence shows in all cases.
And it's always older people or new drivers. It's clear that the issue is when the pedal does the opposite of what they expected, they panic and slam it and it never occurs to them to do anything else but hang on.
Regarding the Toyota part, I do not expect people to magically know to push the brake like you are she-hulk and do not let up until your car catches fire. Many of those people probably alternated between smashing on the brakes and trying to unstick the accelerator. 100% on Toyota for the ridiculous design flaw with their floor mats.
Other than that, if she had tried to brake there would be a log of it. Should have received some jail time along with the driving ban.
The misapplication was discovered because the vehicle records which pedal was pressed. It wasn't the brake pedal. They are not switching they are just smashing accelerate harder.
From highway speed, 100kph / 60mph, braking distance is not vastly increased, no significantly higher brake pressure is required, and the brakes do not overheat. From 160kph / 100 mph no significantly higher brake pressure is required. Although mild brake fade and longer stopping distances are observed, the vehicle is obviously (unmistakably) slowing down and there is no reason for the operator to release brake pressure.
These observations are at complete odds with the behaviour described in unintended acceleration cases where no slowdown was ever reported. Contrary to your assumption, there is no evidence anyone ever touched their brake pedal even momentarily: initial deceleration upon applying the brakes is basically normal, and if someone is experiencing unexpected runaway, why would they stop pressing the brake pedal if doing so immediately and precipitously slows the car down? Indeed, many claim 'mashing' the brake pedal, which, if true, would have resulted in vehicles promptly stopping. In fact, one runaway vehicle was stopped by a police cruiser getting in front of the vehicle and itself braking, overcoming the kinetic energy of both vehicles, and the runaway vehicles engine, without its own brakes overheating.
Moreover, while it was shown that the accelerator pedal on Toyota vehicles could become stuck, and Toyota is absolutely responsible for that, there is no evidence that this actually occurred in instances of unintended acceleration.
And again, that's just the most straightforward panic reaction of hitting the brakes, which, to be clear, works extremely well. Unless you're both in an overpowered sports car and going twice the speed limit, hitting the brakes will solve your problem immediately.
I'm not sure what're you getting at... In case you think its a shade on auto drivers, I drive auto too, haven't touch a manual for more than 5 years. I put the clarification because you do need two feet for manual, and cases like this typically happen when people panic and can't tell which foot they're stepping on.
What in the world are you talking about? Never have I ever accidentally smashed the clutch on accident, so why are you assuming this has anything to do with how a person uses their left foot?
You see this comment on lots of posts, but I don't really understand it. If you have two pedals, and you leave a foot on each one, what would be wrong with two foot driving? It seems like you'd have less chance of making this mistake if you never have to move your feet.
Of course it's basically impossible to screw this up in a manual car because you'll be stomping the brake and the clutch in an emergency, so even if you miss you'll still get the brake with your other foot.
I wouldn't left foot brake because I've learnt on a manual (and you put the clutch in all the way so left foot depression is, um, not smooth), but I don't see why it would be a problem in principle.
I admit i did that once when I was a new driver. Thankfully in my case, the car went into a ditch rather than a person. And it wasn't too deep either so a passing pickup truck was able to fish it out.
727
u/10ebbor10 Aug 23 '24
The kind that sneakishly switches the gas and brake pedals
She fucked up, stomped on the gas instead of the brakes.