How to stop going.

[RED-DOG]

I've been reading a bit in the Press about Toyota Prius owners who's cars have run away with them.

A terrified Toyota driver was forced to use a police vehicle to help stop his own runaway car after the accelerator pedal in his Prius became stuck at speeds of more than 90mph on a California highway.


Apparently the accelerator pedal gets stuck down and they are unable to stop. Some of these drivers have managed to call the police. The police have then chased after the runaway car, overtook it, slowed down in front of it, and used the police car braking system to bring it to a halt.

Has it never occurred to either party that if the police car braking system can stop two cars, the Prius braking system can stop the runaway Prius?

Of course it can. The braking system is always more powerful than the engine. Don't these drivers even attempt to brake?

So anyway, let's image the brakes have failed too. What's wrong with just turning the ignition off. Not all the way so that the steering locks, just to the first position so that the engine is no longer running. That way the drag of the unpowered engine will have an excellent braking effect, and your power steering, indicators and other useful things will still work.

Now let's imagine your accelerator pedal is stuck, your brakes have failed, and your ignition key has welded itself into the 'on' position, and your phone battery us dead so that you can't call the police. What the Hell are you going to do now?

Well you could try pushing the clutch in, or moving the gear lever in to neutral and coasting to a halt. 

FFS!

[Ironside]

back in the early 90s before i got baclofen pump inserted to control the spasm in my legs, i was driving my car when my leg jumped onto the accelerator. Now i drive an automatic so have no clutch, and with the hand controls being a dual hand control i couldnt release the accelerator to apply the brake.

After what seemed like ages panicking (likely less than 15 seconds as i was on a busy road in a 40 mph and didn't hit anything, i managed to put the gear box into neutral and used the hand brake to bring the car to a standstill carefully.
Next day i had the pedals blocked off with a wooden box so it never happend again

[RED-DOG]

back in the early 90s before i got baclofen pump inserted to control the spasm in my legs, i was driving my car when my leg jumped onto the accelerator. Now i drive an automatic so have no clutch, and with the hand controls being a dual hand control i couldnt release the accelerator to apply the brake.

After what seemed like ages panicking (likely less than 15 seconds as i was on a busy road in a 40 mph and didn't hit anything, i managed to put the gear box into neutral and used the hand brake to bring the car to a standstill carefully.
Next day i had the pedals blocked off with a wooden box so it never happend again

That's exactly my point Iron. Your situation was much worse but you still managed to think rationally and do something positive.

These Herberts are in too much of a panic to take one of the many useful options available to them, but they can still manage to call the police.

[atdc21]

What is the matter with these people, once the police stop them they should tell em they aint fit for the road.

[Doobs]

back in the early 90s before i got baclofen pump inserted to control the spasm in my legs, i was driving my car when my leg jumped onto the accelerator. Now i drive an automatic so have no clutch, and with the hand controls being a dual hand control i couldnt release the accelerator to apply the brake.

After what seemed like ages panicking (likely less than 15 seconds as i was on a busy road in a 40 mph and didn't hit anything, i managed to put the gear box into neutral and used the hand brake to bring the car to a standstill carefully.
Next day i had the pedals blocked off with a wooden box so it never happend again

That's exactly my point Iron. Your situation was much worse but you still managed to think rationally and do something positive.

These Herberts are in too much of a panic to take one of the many useful options available to them, but they can still manage to call the police.

But Ironside panicked for 15 seconds.  Where does the line to herbertdom start?  It is easy to say how you'd behave rationally until something entirely unexpected happens to you. 

These Priuses (or Prii or whatever the plural is) were recalled some years ago.  Herbert ignored the recall and the press attention at the time too, so it does seem likely he is a genuine herbert though! 

[RED-DOG]

back in the early 90s before i got baclofen pump inserted to control the spasm in my legs, i was driving my car when my leg jumped onto the accelerator. Now i drive an automatic so have no clutch, and with the hand controls being a dual hand control i couldnt release the accelerator to apply the brake.

After what seemed like ages panicking (likely less than 15 seconds as i was on a busy road in a 40 mph and didn't hit anything, i managed to put the gear box into neutral and used the hand brake to bring the car to a standstill carefully.
Next day i had the pedals blocked off with a wooden box so it never happend again

That's exactly my point Iron. Your situation was much worse but you still managed to think rationally and do something positive.

These Herberts are in too much of a panic to take one of the many useful options available to them, but they can still manage to call the police.

But Ironside panicked for 15 seconds.  Where does the line to herbertdom start?  It is easy to say how you'd behave rationally until something entirely unexpected happens to you. 

These Priuses (or Prii or whatever the plural is) were recalled some years ago.  Herbert ignored the recall and the press attention at the time too, so it does seem likely he is a genuine herbert though! 

I have just officially added herbertdom and Prii to my vocabulary.

[The Wycher]

Presumably the if it was in the UK the police would then give them a ticket for using their phone while driving! (!)

[EvilPie]

Had this happen to me about 20 years ago on my motorbike. The throttle was still doing it's twisty turney thing but the revs wouldn't drop. I could get them to increase but not decrease.

I was doing about 60mph at the time (honest officer) and luckily it was on a nice wide, quiet stretch of country road which was reasonably straight.

Fortunately motorbikes are fitted with a kill switch next to the throttle so I was able to use that to switch off and on again until I could find a good place to pull over.

Once I was stationary I got the thing in to neutral and fired it up again. It screamed like hell for a second or two then went back to normal and never did it again. Very strange........

I think these things often come down to how much time you have to think, I was lucky in that I had plenty of time but there was an initial panic when I realised what was going on. Not sure what I would've done without that kill switch though.

[maccol]

If I recall correctly there was a recording of a 911 call a few years ago where this problem arose. Nothing the driver was advised to do made any difference to the speed of the vehicle. Sadly the incident ended in a fatal collision.
Toyota denied responsibility for a long time before a fault was confirmed.
Pretty sure it cost them millions in lawsuits and vehicle recalls.

[bobAlike]

This happened in my first car. Obviously as a 17 year old I used to floor it everywhere then one day as I pulled out from a T-junction the accelerator seemed to get stuck down. Managed to put in to neutral then turned off engine and coasted in to a pub carpark. The fault was down to a threaded accelerator cable that jammed itself.

[Doobs]

https://www.cars.com/articles/2011/02/plural-of-prius-prii-not-according-to-latin-experts/

Thought I'd look it up officially.  Priuses is right even if Joe Public voted for Prii.

Herbertdom is so obviously correct, hence I haven't looked on Google. 

That raises another question.  Do we look on Google or just Google?  I haven't Googled seems better than I haven't looked on Google, but are both correct?

[maccol]

I think google has become a verb ,as well as a proper noun , in everyday usage , so youre probably right.

[Marky147]

back in the early 90s before i got baclofen pump inserted to control the spasm in my legs, i was driving my car when my leg jumped onto the accelerator. Now i drive an automatic so have no clutch, and with the hand controls being a dual hand control i couldnt release the accelerator to apply the brake.

After what seemed like ages panicking (likely less than 15 seconds as i was on a busy road in a 40 mph and didn't hit anything, i managed to put the gear box into neutral and used the hand brake to bring the car to a standstill carefully.
Next day i had the pedals blocked off with a wooden box so it never happend again

My spasticity consultant wanted me to get one of those, but I didn't fancy going through that big an operation, relative to the issues I have.

[Ironside]

changed my life, i was so reluctant to get the first one it was quite new at the time and needed me to activate it twice a day, the new ones all computerised are great and have the capacity to last 6 months between refills which only take 10-15 minutes.

i need to go in to get it replaced next year though as the  new ones have a battery in them which needs replacing but the operation is quite monor once they have it all linked up to the spine

[Marky147]

changed my life, i was so reluctant to get the first one it was quite new at the time and needed me to activate it twice a day, the new ones all computerised are great and have the capacity to last 6 months between refills which only take 10-15 minutes.

i need to go in to get it replaced next year though as the  new ones have a battery in them which needs replacing but the operation is quite monor once they have it all linked up to the spine

Good stuff, glad that it's done the business for you.

My spasticity wasn't really that bad, and they couldn't work out what exactly was occurring. It didn't really stop me doing anything, but made my balance bad. Over the last year or so, it's gotten a bit worse, but I'm fine when sat down/driving etc.

I did a fair bit of research on it, and it's amazing how far technology has come this century.