russ69:

All motorcycles have kill switches but no car does? I wonder why,it's good for bikes and not for cars? I have had stuck throttles, I just turned off the engine, I guess I've been wrong all this time? You loose power assist after a short time but you can still brake and turn. My car has 400 hp, if the gas sticks you want to turn it off quick before you gain too much speed. You are not going to be able to select neutral very well when you are pinned in the seat and gaining speed fast, plus you'll need both hands to steer when the power steering fades.

Thanx, Russ  

 

Speaking from a standpoint of someone with alot of miles behind 1,400 HP, I have my doubts as to why anybody who would think it would be a panic descission behind 400 HP, should even have a drivers liscense!!

Having said the pevious, I will state the obvious; Almost all new cars come standard with a rev limiter!! Puting it into neutral and applying the brakes won't hurt the engine a bit!!!!

Putting the engine in a lower gear at too many RPMs could over rev and blow the engine!!

Turning the engine off with a stuck throttle with fuel injection could possibly hydraulic the engine!!

Doesn't take alot of thought here, just some basic understanding of how an engine works!!

                                               Roger

The only stuck throttle problem I would worry about was my old 1968 L-88 Corvette and then it was a manual tranny but it would scare the crap out of me.

JJK

JJK's answer brought back memories of the Z-28 racing days of yore..... Turn the key off and leave it in gear, especially leave it in gear. Also, had a 68' 426 Hemi Roadrunner with the Torqueflite  that I ran in the NHRA "stock" class (B/SA). Well one day, the twin AFB's (big ole' Carter carbs) linkage retaining pin inside the firewall broke.... and what a ride. Turned the key off, kept it in drive and slowly but surely, with much backfiring, big flames (hot unburned fuel coming through the headers...) it rolled to a stop...... What a ride.

twistedcrankcammer:

Turning the engine off with a stuck throttle with fuel injection could possibly hydraulic the engine!!

 

With EFI The fuel gets cut off when you kill the engine. It kinda takes the fun out of turning the key off, you don't get the fuel into the exhaust and it doesn't give you a big bang like a carburetor car does, Like I said done it many times, no problems.

Thanx, Russ

How do you explain this one?

 

I heard an interesting quote this week that would apply in this situation. Something like...."Stupidity is the greatest determiner of destiny."

jacksonbart:

How do you explain this one?

Whenever you approach a level crossing, remember that the train always has the right of way, both legally and logically.

The owner of that car was lucky to have so little damage.  I've seen cars turned to confetti in a collision with a train.  That locomotive likely had no more damage than a broken headlight, if that. A six-axle loco like that weighs around 290,000 pounds or about 145 tons.  Each wheel and axle assembly (not counting the attached traction motor) weighs about a ton and a half.  Locomotives have serious amounts of mass and momentum, never mind the mass and momentum of the rest of the train.

That's quite a nice hood ornament for the BNSF engine.

Back in 1982 I was living with my middle sister in Portland Oregon for awhile. I helped a friend of theirs tow a '70's Cadillac Eldorado with a cracked block across town. He was towing with a 3/4 or 1 ton Ford van.

But this guy was a total nut. He starts driving full blast everwhere. I was having a hard time trying to pilot that Cadillac with no power steering or brakes with him wide open everywhere. It was rough trying to stop both of us with no power brakes.......especially with him just stopping and going.

Of course, I ended up tagging him in the rear-end. It was light hit, and he just laughs and takes off again. After flying down a congested street speeding, and almost hitting a car, I had enough.

We're doing about 50mph, and I buried the E-brake. And then using the steering wheel as leverage, I put both feet on the brake pedal and put all my weight on it. The van went from 50mph, to about 5mph real fast, with the rear end swinging right and left on that chain. He gets out to bark at me. I told him to slow down or I'll just walk back......you can tow the cadillac by yourself......

He chilled out.

Back at home in the mid-eighties, a good friend was putting a 350 chevy motor and turbo 350 tranny into roughly a '72 vintage Vega wagon. He was doing it for another friend who owned it. He gets it running, and we take it for a spin.

Now it's pretty much impossible to jam a turbo 350 up into reverse or park. It probably can be done if one forces it hard enough, I suppose. But's it's real easy to do if you forget to hook up the vacuum modulator to the transmission.

As we are cruising, he throws into low and jumps on it. From low into second, from second into drive, from drive up into reverse...BAM! We went from about 45-50mph to a dead stop, with a rear wheel blazing in reverse. I went into the dash and windshield, he ate steering wheel. We didn't get hurt at all, just woken up really good.

He knew right away he forgot to connect the vacuum modulator. He fixed that and it was fine.

I would think Toyota will deny everything and stick with the floormat theory, until someone catches a car in the act, traces the defective part/parts, and can prove that the part/parts are defective and causing the problem.

Lots of troubling unanswered questions about the case.  All the interviews I've read say that if anyone should have been able to deal with a runaway car, it was the CHP officer behind the wheel. 

No idea why he was unable to shift into neutral - or have the passanger pull it into neutral - but SoCal traffic flows at about 80 mph, so they would already have been moving pretty fast when the car took off.  Not much time to think, but the brother-in-law in the back seat had time to make a 911 call, so it seems like someone should have been able to do something to prevent this tragedy.

James

jacksonbart:

How do you explain this one?

 

Wait a second?  Is that still the "new car" sticker in the rear passenger window?

skonopa:

jacksonbart:

How do you explain this one?

 

Wait a second?  Is that still the "new car" sticker in the rear passenger window?

Yep , just out for a test drive . Possibly texting at the time of impact .

I had a Ford Bronco when I was in college.  I was driving on campus while class was letting out with people walking everywhere.

My accellerator got stuck under the floor mat and floored the engine.  I stood on the brake but it was not enough to stop the truck.  I put it in neutral, the engine reved like crazy and I turned it off.  Needless to say, the spinning back tires, the crazy engine sounds etc, created quite a site.  People were like what is wrong with you?

Scared me to death, I could have very very easily ran over several people walking across the street.  I had the truck towed to dealer.  The throttle pedal was looked at and found to be fine.  Then the tech and I noticed the mat flip up and over the pedal.  Bingo.

Got rid of those mats, and to this day I very regularly look to see where my floor mats are on the floor of my truck.

Paul

Drivers don't drive automatics.  The day I drive an automatic is the day I am physically unable to drive a standard, and then there might be a case for not driving at all.

Twisted, when a rev limiter kicks in it actually lowers the revs below the peak that it kicks in.  For the sake of this case I get the impression no limiter kicks in, because if it did a driver would gain a sense of what to do.

Back in high school a girl named Chrystal owned about '65 Ford Fairlane four door. One day I'm just starting to walk out in the school parking lot, and see a white car flying like it hit a ramp, land and smash the back of another car.

(The lot had long island strips breaking it down into four sections. The island strips were about four feet wide, and had streetlights mounted along the length of them. The islands were 12" tall)

I dunno if she got a floormat hung up on the gas pedal, or just stomped on it for no apparent reason......but she hit the island from one side, shot the car straight up about 75 degrees, and parked the front end of her car on top of the deck lid of a '69 Nova on the other side of the island. Crushed the trunk, blew out the back window, did some rather extensive damage.

The guy that owned the car was poor struggling gearhead, that loved that ol' ragged Nova. He was so p*ssed...........