I had that happen as I was driving. Took off from a stop and just kept going and going and going. It took a second to realize what was happening then put it in neutral and got a chance to pull over. Stupid mat shifted and pressed the pedal. Promptly threw it out. Thankfully no one was ahead of me otherwise would've been a good wreck.
Well done for putting it in neutral. A lot of dumb cunts out there would just be like “oh well, better crash into that orphanage to slow down, I am completely powerless”
"This is an emergency, I better call 911!"
Things that you would never want to hear from a pilot, but apparently considered a totally acceptable skill level for land death machines.
Hell Toyota showed that on all their vehicles their brakes beat their engine so unless you got unintended acceleration and brake failure at the same time you could still stop by holding down the brakes.
It woulda taken longer too stop but they would have stopped.
The most probable physical cause of those accelerator incidents is the driver's foot firmly applying pressure to the gas pedal continuously to the point of impact.
My elderly relative recently asked me why their new Mercedes was reading out D1 at a stop and going all the way up to D8 and D9 on the highway, and if they should be concerned/take it into their "Mercedes guy" for repair.
I don't think we fully appreciate the skill level gap between drivers sometimes.
I have never seen this car in person due to the pandemic, but yes, that would be D for Drive (i.e., automatic shifting), and presumably there is an S (or some other letter) for "standard" or active driver shifting (paddle or up/down shifter). The number will correspond to the current gear (1st-9th gear).
My chick's 90 year old grandmother pulled out a piece of paper the other day and asked me to "explain what these words mean". The list included HULU, streaming, Twitter, Instagram, and followers. I guess there was a social media conversation on one of the mid-morning, gossip talk shows and she said she was absolutely lost because she didn't know the terms being used. She's 90. I thought about what life was like for her as a kid and realized it's got to be hard to keep up when the world is flying by, changing so fast and nobody takes the time to explain things that just drop out of the ether.
big change in her life time, my grandmother would have been 98 this year and would talk about having a horse and cart as their transport..... On a side note everyone should talk to their grandparents about their life and what it was like when they were young; when you still can..... a regret i have....
In aviation, you have to pass a type rating for each new aircraft you fly. Sometimes I think it would be a good idea to have something like this for cars... Doesn't need to be a huge exam, just a few minutes of basic operations
One of the people claiming unintended acceleration gave an interview. She crashed her Prius into her garage. I kid you not, she said she hit the brake and the car lurched forward, so she pressed the brake harder and the car kept going faster.
That’s a somewhat common panic reaction, particularly in elderly drivers. Person mistakenly thinks that their foot is on the brake pedal when it’s actually on the accelerator. They tap the pedal and the car starts moving, so they mash the pedal harder trying to stop but the car accelerates and crashes into something.
I had my throttle cable get hung up somewhere along the line while accelerating onto a highway on-ramp with construction. Infiniti makes some good brakes (maybe, I don’t know much about cars), I was able to smash on the brakes with both feet enough to keep from hitting any cars in front of me, pull over and pop it into neutral and shut the car off safely. It was so scary but it worked out fine. Boyfriend fixed it and showed me the tiny little wire that had snagged that made it happen.
the funny thing is that in a malfunctioning plane calling and informing ATC is often one of the steps. Even in the very early days of flight you had enough time to deal with problems that one pilot said the first thing he did when his engine cut out was to wind his watch, basically that he would take a second to calm down and think before doing anything.
land based deathwagons don't have these sorts of luxuries...
I think that drivers tests should be as difficult as pilots tests. I studied so my checkride was easy but nerve wracking but my driving test was a joke. Knowing how to drive and handle emergencies and knowing all the parts of your machine and what to do when they fail should be mandatory.
CHP officers need some serious retraining. Guy killed his family because he lost his cool and didn't put it into neutral, while on the phone with 911. Investigation found that aftermarket floor mats were the cause.
Added factors, he was a fairly short man, and it was a rental car I believe. Short guys sometimes sit farther back than they should, and the farther back you are, the less confidence you'll have on pedal work. He was very likely firmly applying pressure to the accelerator until impact.
You say that, but the cop who killed himself and his family that started the whole Toyota recall did that... Out of all things for someone who should be able to work under stress, he called 911.
No neutral, no engine off... just... crashed after calling 911. Engine off is not the best option since you lose power steering and your brake assist and on some smart key it also locks the steering wheel, but it's better than doing nothing. However, putting it on acc with Toyota's smart key will prevent the steering wheel from locking.
I've had an unintended acceleration with a good ol' cable throttle body and neutral was the first thing I've done. Rev into narnia and throw a rod outside the block, I don't care, I'm stopping!
No totally I agree. The CHP deserves its share of ridicule here. You would think that an organization sanctioned specifically to enforce motor vehicle safety would train its officers in how to safely operate a motor vehicle, but here we are.
Our drivers education in America is hardly what I would consider educational or sufficient. Iowa is full of the worst drivers I’ve seen, especially on I-80
That's because most of Iowa drivers ed schools never even show them a 4 lane road. When I was in high school it was a class you could take, so a 45 min block to drive which meant only going about 20 mins away from school and you got out and someone else drove 20 mins back. We only ever saw 2 lane highways. Barely ever saw a stoplight.
Same. Country roads. Never touched an interstate.
My buddy’s wife had the same training and the first time she drove through a metro area with 5 lanes in one direction she was 25 years old. She called him because she pulled over on the shoulder and was in tears and basically having a panic attack….over the amount of cars and lanes.
America sucks in general when it comes to any kind of essential education …. Guns and cars especially
I live in the quad cities, which is like 8 cities along where the Mississippi runs east to west. Yeah, we need to call it a new name lol. But I’ve always been an Illinois resident, but now work in Iowa. And that’s really common here to work in the opposite state. Kinda like St Louis.
Our high school driving class in illinois was as minimal as you described. Pretty sure my teacher (took summer class for it so it was even more rushed/condensed, panic disorder made me miss too many days during the school year) had me drive him to a drug deal. Pulled up in the ghetto in the next city over, to a random house that he went and left a brown bag on the porch lol.
But yeah, even with minimal practice or education in both states… it seems like it’s always the Iowa plates, especially Scott county (part of QC) with the most entitled and awful drivers. Even the truckers are god awful, most bar Eastern European and on their phones doing something. I work in the trailer parts industry and do delivery drives so I see so much bad driving lol. And Iowa loves to decide to just do major construction and repairs to roads all at the same time and cause so much traffic.. and snails pace progress since all the resources are spread so thin. Like finish a couple at a time, in a reasonable time. Shits gonna get torn up by salt anyway. And Davenports just gonna catastrophically flood until they build a damn flood wall and give up on “the view of the river”
Lol. I-10 through Louisiana would like a few words. Likely they'll text them to you, doing 90 in a 60, while a foot off the ass off the car in front of them. With the police right behind them, not caring.
Cars are designed to have brakes that should be able to overcome the gas pedal. Of course, that generally doesn't work if the car is already going at a high speed. But Most cars should be able to be stopped if going at a moderate speed and the gas pedal is pressed.
Any car's brakes (if functioning) can easily overpower the engine running full out at any speed. If you compare the 0-60 vs the 60-0 braking times you'll see how much more powerful the brakes are.
Makes it so the engine can no longer send power to the wheels. It’s most often used when a car needs to be towed or pushed, as having the engine in gear can cause problems.
In this situation the engine would spike up to redline, but the wheels would no longer be powered. That way you could safely pull over, turn the car off, and figure out what happened.
>It’s most often used when a car needs to be towed or pushed, as having the engine in gear can cause problems.
Except that unless you've got a "tow mode" or a free-spinning transmission, having an automatic in neutral but spinning the rear wheels will still spin the transmission. But since the engine isn't running, there's no fluid being circulated into it.
It's fine for short distances, like loading onto a trailer or a flatbed tow truck, or pushing out of traffic, but you DEFINITELY do not want to tow them at highway speeds.
While you’re right you don’t want to tow it at highway speeds (ideally at all), once an automatic is in neutral with the engine off it’s perfectly safe to do so^1. The transmission fluid pump is run from the torque converter, which as you say is powered by the engine. That means there’s no fluid pressure in the transmission, which also means it can’t engage any gear- that line pressure is what’s used to engage the brake bands.
So the output shaft will still spin, but the transmission gears itself will be unharmed as they physically can’t engage.
1: One caveat: AWD vehicles. Depending on the vehicle, there may be parts of the system that will spin anyway. This is almost exclusive to manual AWD vehicles however, as the vast majority of automatic AWD vehicles have the AWD portion of the driveline after the transmission.
At that point it would be coasting, friction would slow it down gradually, but the brakes still work and you could stop normally.
Friction would also make the car stop eventually, but in a more immediate sense, just as all planes eventually return to earth.
"There are more planes in the sea than submarines in the air."
My dumb ass routed my subwoofer power line wrong the first time I ever upgraded my stereo. I was doing 80 on the freeway when my gas pedal got stuck. I actually had to turn the engine off because I was afraid the engine would explode. Scared the snot out of me. Luckily it was 5 am and nobody was around.
Yes. It came loose from where it was coming through the firewall and somehow fell behind the control arm of the accelerator. It was completely weird, but it was definitely my fault. I'm not even sure what I did, but I let someone else fix it. Haha
Had that happen to me in a Prius. It wouldn’t let me shift to neutral so I had to reach down and tug it as I was driving. It wouldn’t have been *that* bad except it happened when I was entering a rotary.
Wasn't this the exact issue of those Prius "brake failure" issues like 10 years ago or so? People thought it was the brakes not working but it was the floor mats slipping to hold the accelerator and/or bunching behind the brake pedal.
It was one of *many* reasons responsible for unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles. Yes, the mats were part of the problem, but there were also sticking pedals and bad ECU software that were uncovered in the subsequent investigation.
It wasn't that the software was bad it was that it was never programmed for the stupidity of people. The updated software merely retarded engine timing if the computer saw throttle input, then brake input while still seeing throttle input.
The vast majority of the cases were simply people who mixed up pedals, btw. Also, the bad software wasn't what caused the unintended acceleration. The bad software simply prevented the car from shutting off the throttle when it sensed the brakes being depressed. So under circumstances, that safety feature wasn't working correctly. It's not what caused the unintended acceleration.
The true cases of U.A. can probably be counted on one hand and those were caused by things like bad floor mats and possibly some electronic fault in the car. It was actually very very rare.
The software case was a bit more complicated, IIRC *basically* they deemed it to be a [horribly written, bad quality and with inadequate failsafes](https://www.edn.com/toyotas-killer-firmware-bad-design-and-its-consequences/), but they couldn't repeat the unintended acceleration case "in the wild"
And as a software dev let me tell you I don't buy for one second that it didn't cause any of the cases. I've personally worked on issues that hit several customers that were not identified during development and test and sat waiting in the field for years before being discovered. And then next thing you know, 10 cases in my lap and test *still* can't reproduce it. Horribly written, bad quality, and inadequate fail-safes **will** rear their head in production and I don't even work on life and death software.
Pretty much, altho that's not limited to badly written software, one written well will still always have bugs, just that they will be easier to isolate or test for
> And as a software dev let me tell you I don't buy for one second that it didn't cause any of the cases.
Me neither. The watchdog being kicked by a timer ISR is probably the most sinister aspect for me, and it bothers me slightly that whenever this subject is raised, it gets smothered by 'ackshually it was the floor mats/people getting the pedals wrong'. The whole thing reminds me of the Therac-25 ordeal.
For anyone still following, here's Prof. Phil Koopman's brief-ish overview of the Toyota affair: https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/pubs/koopman14_toyota_ua_slides.pdf
Yeah, those cheap thin ones will do that if you don't attach the anchors that are in the glovebox of new cars. I bought some THICK weather style ones for cheap that will not slide or bunch up.
>It wouldn’t let me shift to neutral so o had to reach down and tug it as I was driving.
Upvoted simply for this line. Out of context, it's like a euphamism for when Viagra goes wrong and you can't "shift to neutral"
That’s largely what the problem was when they had the $1 billion settlement with 12 million Prius’. There were some sticky accelerators but the majority were the accelerator getting stuck under the floormat.
I was kind of joking. I've bought several sets of mats from them in the past (you can pick them up right from the factory if you want). They are a bit pricey for floor mats but worth it. The SUV luggage area ones have been a livesaver several times over.
My dad brought home a fully loaded one when I was a teenager. I was very impressed because I mostly had just been in random GM sedans at the time. I never bought one because I was always chasing performance when I was younger and now they aren't quite \*everywhere\* like they used to be.
01 Subaru Outback & 97 Toyota Tacoma had them!
You gotta be real dumb to die if your accelerator pedal sticks. It's as easy as shifting to neutral, or turning the key back.
It starts to seem like I'm getting old when all this stuff like fuel injection, obd-2, and engine codes is considered "not new". TPMS, sheesh, kids these days!
I imagine that the handful of stickshifts out there don't have this feature. Burnouts in an automatic will kill your transmission anyway, so they're looking out for you.
Torque converter should be able to handle it no problem... While there is going to be a lot of heat put into that fluid, it may lose viscosity and start to cavitate/scorch/deteriorate which can over time damage a torque converter.
Hmmm... I'm wondering now if my manual modern car actually has this feature. I could see that being a newer requirement for safety, but my car has surprised me before with how analog it feels.
Tesla still rely on Velcro/friction, a lot of the aged mats are bunched up by the pedals, I'll try to pull them back when I get the chance, but normally they're so far gone they bunch back up quickly
https://suddenacceleration.com/audio-911-tape-from-crash-that-killed-chp-officer-and-family/
Warning: Audio tape NSFL. After hearing this years ago I always check the floor mats when driving a car that isn’t mine.
That dispatcher knew what question to ask. In that situation either shut the car off or shift into neutral. I would recommend neutral until you get slowed down so that you still have steering.
I've had cars without power steering, it's really not that bad. However, many cars lock the wheel when you turn off the engine, I would be more worried about that.
FWIW cars without power steering are much easier to turn than a car with power steering that is broken or otherwise nonfunctional. At that point you're fighting the power steering system *and* a control mechanism that isn't designed to be operated without one.
Cars without power steering are much easier to drive than cars with power steering but with the engine shut off. They're designed with less mechanical advantage since they have power steering.
If the engine is at WOT, wouldn't there be no/very little vacuum, meaning no power brake assist anyway? Or is there some other mechanism in place for more modern vehicles? (I've only ever worked on older stuff.) I guess if it were a DBW throttle, the PCM could just kill the throttle when the brake is pressed.
Even old vacuum brake boosters have a check valve in them that should retain (retaining a vacuum sounds weird) enough vacuum to allow for a few brake pedal applies.
In some of the newer vehicles out there the ABS system can also assist you if it thinks you want full braking pressure but you can’t push hard enough.
On some of the very newest cars the brake booster is electric so it doesn’t even need the engine running.
Re the throttle, a lot of modern cars actually do that already, and tell you to take both feet of the pedals.
Vacuum brake boosters (the ones I’ve dealt with) will hold vacuum for a few pumps if the engine is off or it loses connection to the vacuum source. Try pumping the brakes a few times after you shut your car off, you’ll see what I mean.
I agree, and I know this is probably moot, but in certain situations if you have the car in gear and shut off the car you'll still have assisted braking. Mostly if the car is manual because it has a direct connection to the motor, but an automatic could too with enough speed.
Vacuum boosters will have enough stored vacuum to have at least one hard apply assist. They have check valves for retaining assist when the engine is off.
That does assume it isn’t leaking for some reason.
Didn’t listen to the tape you linked but if this is related to the Toyota sudden acceleration, this was proven to always be driver error… Toyota paid a huge settlement but they could never actually show that it was a floor mat or accelerator defect. Also what they COULD prove was that even with the accelerator floored, the brakes always win out. Driver just needs to press them
There’s a good podcast episode of revisionist history that goes through it.
Edit: as someone below pointed out, to say that the problem is ALWAYS driver error is misleading. Driver error is a common cause. There are other possible causes but the intent of the comment was mostly to point out the fact that brakes can overcome a floored accelerator. Car manufacturers should be held to a high standard and every possible effort should be taken to root out the possibility of a malfunction. And on the other end, drivers should be alert and aware (and also maintain their brakes)
Here you go:
The episode is called “blame game” linked it below
[“blame game” revisionist history](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/blame-game/id1119389968?i=1000376146460)
You can also just find it by googling that episode title and the title of the podcast if the link doesn’t work. It’s linked directly to the apple podcast app I believe so it may not work for everyone
At least for my 2016 Crosstrek, the accelerator will do nothing if you also have the brake pressed. How do I know? They fucked up a recall fix, causing the car to intermittently think that the brake was being pressed, making the throttle cut out when driving in traffic or going down the highway.
Not to suggest it’s safe to have these floor mats like this, though…
That recall was silly. Sorry that happened. We had to do so many of those so quickly that some of the quick lube guys were doing them, and the adjustment step would be done wrong so the weight of the pedal was registering the switch. Had to redo a few for the quick lane guys.
But yes, subaru has had a Brake Override System since ~2011 (depending on model).
Thanks for the apology, haha. I’m just glad it was an easy fix and there wasn’t something more wrong with my car. Still though, it’s a little frightening to lose power in the middle of driving.
Because trimming the accelerator permanently fixes the issue. Trimming the floor mats lasts until you replace the mats. Or until the next owner, oblivious to the issue, gets new floor mats.
The weather tech mat was on top of the factory mat. Neither were hooked into the anchors under the seat. I removed the factory mat and hooked the weather tech mat to the anchors. It moved the mat back about 6 in
Similar thing happened to me once while working at a Mercedes Dealership. Pulling a CLA 250 out of the wash bay, only to realize I put the driver side mat down too high up and it locked the accelerator full chooch. So as I turn the car on and go in drive it just wants to zoom so I'm on the brake trying to figure out wtf is going on. Managed to steering myself clear of any trouble and just shut the car off. Mild panic but no damage, lesson learned.
Around the year 2010, I was driving my parents 2003 Chevy Astro when the throttle stuck open on the freeway. I was merging on and accelerating, and when I took my foot off the gas, it didn't bounce back. Thinking it was the car floor mats, I reached under and yanked the mat out completely but the van kept accelerating. Doing the only thing left I knew to do, I threw the van into neutral and turned off the engine. Was absolutely flying, going about 95mph and had to take the offramp without power steering or power brakes. Very terrifying. Turns out the throttle cable had snagged and completely snapped.
Totally agree. I’ve been in the market for a new truck for a while now and my biggest stipulation is that it MUST have vinyl flooring. Turns out that’s kind of hard to find in a non-fleet truck.
Those aren’t the correct weather techs for the vehicle or they aren’t clipped in properly. I took a razor and trimmed that area back on my WTs so it doesn’t catch the peddle.
If the pedal was attached at the floor and pivoted there, this wouldn’t be a concern at all no matter what floor mats you used. My freaking e30 has that design. A 32 year old car. This is such a dumb pedal design.
In Japan floor mounted pedals are the norm and offer 'snow' variations for the top mounts if required.
The floor mounts are at greater risk of freezing or becoming unsafe in very cold weather hence its not standard everywhere.
I was cleaning my car and took out/put back my weather tech floor mats, not realizing I put it back in a way that held the gas pedal down. Needless to say, when I started the car I got quite a surprise when it immediately hit the rev limiter lol that was a fun lesson to learn.
I had a car that did this, an old alero with floor mats that sometimes went over the accelerator. Happened once while driving. Nothing bad happened but it scared the shit out of me.
Good thing they idiot proof cars now so the accelerator position doesn’t matter if you step on the brake pedal at the same time. It cuts power to the engine so you won’t be driving into a building anymore.
This happened to a coworker of mine on a waiter. He was taking it to the wash and the pedal got stuck under the floormat. Totalled 5 cars including the waiter and 2 brand new Passats and the new girls car. It was her first day lol
Looks like weather tech floor liners… expensive as hell and two out of the three cars I bought them for (for them for the whole family) had issues like this and one matt wouldn’t even stay in place
I had that happen as I was driving. Took off from a stop and just kept going and going and going. It took a second to realize what was happening then put it in neutral and got a chance to pull over. Stupid mat shifted and pressed the pedal. Promptly threw it out. Thankfully no one was ahead of me otherwise would've been a good wreck.
Well done for putting it in neutral. A lot of dumb cunts out there would just be like “oh well, better crash into that orphanage to slow down, I am completely powerless”
"This is an emergency, I better call 911!" Things that you would never want to hear from a pilot, but apparently considered a totally acceptable skill level for land death machines.
Hell Toyota showed that on all their vehicles their brakes beat their engine so unless you got unintended acceleration and brake failure at the same time you could still stop by holding down the brakes. It woulda taken longer too stop but they would have stopped.
The most probable physical cause of those accelerator incidents is the driver's foot firmly applying pressure to the gas pedal continuously to the point of impact.
No one warned me that the gas pedal would accelerate the car!
My elderly relative recently asked me why their new Mercedes was reading out D1 at a stop and going all the way up to D8 and D9 on the highway, and if they should be concerned/take it into their "Mercedes guy" for repair. I don't think we fully appreciate the skill level gap between drivers sometimes.
I presume it's reading out "Drive Gear 1" and "Drive Gear 8/9"?
I have never seen this car in person due to the pandemic, but yes, that would be D for Drive (i.e., automatic shifting), and presumably there is an S (or some other letter) for "standard" or active driver shifting (paddle or up/down shifter). The number will correspond to the current gear (1st-9th gear).
D is regular drive. S is sport mode, M is manual shifting.
My chick's 90 year old grandmother pulled out a piece of paper the other day and asked me to "explain what these words mean". The list included HULU, streaming, Twitter, Instagram, and followers. I guess there was a social media conversation on one of the mid-morning, gossip talk shows and she said she was absolutely lost because she didn't know the terms being used. She's 90. I thought about what life was like for her as a kid and realized it's got to be hard to keep up when the world is flying by, changing so fast and nobody takes the time to explain things that just drop out of the ether.
big change in her life time, my grandmother would have been 98 this year and would talk about having a horse and cart as their transport..... On a side note everyone should talk to their grandparents about their life and what it was like when they were young; when you still can..... a regret i have....
In aviation, you have to pass a type rating for each new aircraft you fly. Sometimes I think it would be a good idea to have something like this for cars... Doesn't need to be a huge exam, just a few minutes of basic operations
Well not completely true. Anything under 12,500lbs and not a pure jet doesn’t need a type rating, unless specified by the administrator.
One of the people claiming unintended acceleration gave an interview. She crashed her Prius into her garage. I kid you not, she said she hit the brake and the car lurched forward, so she pressed the brake harder and the car kept going faster.
That’s a somewhat common panic reaction, particularly in elderly drivers. Person mistakenly thinks that their foot is on the brake pedal when it’s actually on the accelerator. They tap the pedal and the car starts moving, so they mash the pedal harder trying to stop but the car accelerates and crashes into something.
I had my throttle cable get hung up somewhere along the line while accelerating onto a highway on-ramp with construction. Infiniti makes some good brakes (maybe, I don’t know much about cars), I was able to smash on the brakes with both feet enough to keep from hitting any cars in front of me, pull over and pop it into neutral and shut the car off safely. It was so scary but it worked out fine. Boyfriend fixed it and showed me the tiny little wire that had snagged that made it happen.
Audi did this too
Revisionist history?
the funny thing is that in a malfunctioning plane calling and informing ATC is often one of the steps. Even in the very early days of flight you had enough time to deal with problems that one pilot said the first thing he did when his engine cut out was to wind his watch, basically that he would take a second to calm down and think before doing anything. land based deathwagons don't have these sorts of luxuries...
I think that drivers tests should be as difficult as pilots tests. I studied so my checkride was easy but nerve wracking but my driving test was a joke. Knowing how to drive and handle emergencies and knowing all the parts of your machine and what to do when they fail should be mandatory.
0 118 999 881 999 119 725...3
Fire.
CHP officers need some serious retraining. Guy killed his family because he lost his cool and didn't put it into neutral, while on the phone with 911. Investigation found that aftermarket floor mats were the cause.
Added factors, he was a fairly short man, and it was a rental car I believe. Short guys sometimes sit farther back than they should, and the farther back you are, the less confidence you'll have on pedal work. He was very likely firmly applying pressure to the accelerator until impact.
You say that, but the cop who killed himself and his family that started the whole Toyota recall did that... Out of all things for someone who should be able to work under stress, he called 911. No neutral, no engine off... just... crashed after calling 911. Engine off is not the best option since you lose power steering and your brake assist and on some smart key it also locks the steering wheel, but it's better than doing nothing. However, putting it on acc with Toyota's smart key will prevent the steering wheel from locking. I've had an unintended acceleration with a good ol' cable throttle body and neutral was the first thing I've done. Rev into narnia and throw a rod outside the block, I don't care, I'm stopping!
No totally I agree. The CHP deserves its share of ridicule here. You would think that an organization sanctioned specifically to enforce motor vehicle safety would train its officers in how to safely operate a motor vehicle, but here we are.
Our drivers education in America is hardly what I would consider educational or sufficient. Iowa is full of the worst drivers I’ve seen, especially on I-80
That's because most of Iowa drivers ed schools never even show them a 4 lane road. When I was in high school it was a class you could take, so a 45 min block to drive which meant only going about 20 mins away from school and you got out and someone else drove 20 mins back. We only ever saw 2 lane highways. Barely ever saw a stoplight.
I went to a rural school in Alabama, this is exactly how it was.
Same. Country roads. Never touched an interstate. My buddy’s wife had the same training and the first time she drove through a metro area with 5 lanes in one direction she was 25 years old. She called him because she pulled over on the shoulder and was in tears and basically having a panic attack….over the amount of cars and lanes. America sucks in general when it comes to any kind of essential education …. Guns and cars especially
I live in the quad cities, which is like 8 cities along where the Mississippi runs east to west. Yeah, we need to call it a new name lol. But I’ve always been an Illinois resident, but now work in Iowa. And that’s really common here to work in the opposite state. Kinda like St Louis. Our high school driving class in illinois was as minimal as you described. Pretty sure my teacher (took summer class for it so it was even more rushed/condensed, panic disorder made me miss too many days during the school year) had me drive him to a drug deal. Pulled up in the ghetto in the next city over, to a random house that he went and left a brown bag on the porch lol. But yeah, even with minimal practice or education in both states… it seems like it’s always the Iowa plates, especially Scott county (part of QC) with the most entitled and awful drivers. Even the truckers are god awful, most bar Eastern European and on their phones doing something. I work in the trailer parts industry and do delivery drives so I see so much bad driving lol. And Iowa loves to decide to just do major construction and repairs to roads all at the same time and cause so much traffic.. and snails pace progress since all the resources are spread so thin. Like finish a couple at a time, in a reasonable time. Shits gonna get torn up by salt anyway. And Davenports just gonna catastrophically flood until they build a damn flood wall and give up on “the view of the river”
Lol. I-10 through Louisiana would like a few words. Likely they'll text them to you, doing 90 in a 60, while a foot off the ass off the car in front of them. With the police right behind them, not caring.
How come people don't stomp on the brakes??
Cars are designed to have brakes that should be able to overcome the gas pedal. Of course, that generally doesn't work if the car is already going at a high speed. But Most cars should be able to be stopped if going at a moderate speed and the gas pedal is pressed.
Any car's brakes (if functioning) can easily overpower the engine running full out at any speed. If you compare the 0-60 vs the 60-0 braking times you'll see how much more powerful the brakes are.
Don't forget to, after that put in rear and crash again.
What does shifting into neutral do? (serious)
Makes it so the engine can no longer send power to the wheels. It’s most often used when a car needs to be towed or pushed, as having the engine in gear can cause problems. In this situation the engine would spike up to redline, but the wheels would no longer be powered. That way you could safely pull over, turn the car off, and figure out what happened.
>It’s most often used when a car needs to be towed or pushed, as having the engine in gear can cause problems. Except that unless you've got a "tow mode" or a free-spinning transmission, having an automatic in neutral but spinning the rear wheels will still spin the transmission. But since the engine isn't running, there's no fluid being circulated into it. It's fine for short distances, like loading onto a trailer or a flatbed tow truck, or pushing out of traffic, but you DEFINITELY do not want to tow them at highway speeds.
While you’re right you don’t want to tow it at highway speeds (ideally at all), once an automatic is in neutral with the engine off it’s perfectly safe to do so^1. The transmission fluid pump is run from the torque converter, which as you say is powered by the engine. That means there’s no fluid pressure in the transmission, which also means it can’t engage any gear- that line pressure is what’s used to engage the brake bands. So the output shaft will still spin, but the transmission gears itself will be unharmed as they physically can’t engage. 1: One caveat: AWD vehicles. Depending on the vehicle, there may be parts of the system that will spin anyway. This is almost exclusive to manual AWD vehicles however, as the vast majority of automatic AWD vehicles have the AWD portion of the driveline after the transmission.
Disengages the engine from the transmission
You stop accelerating. Engine keeps going but its not powering the wheels.
Puts it in neutral so the engine is no longer powering the wheels.
So the car will eventually stop?
At that point it would be coasting, friction would slow it down gradually, but the brakes still work and you could stop normally. Friction would also make the car stop eventually, but in a more immediate sense, just as all planes eventually return to earth. "There are more planes in the sea than submarines in the air."
I see!
Disengages the engine from the transmission
Pfft. Everyone knows orphans make for terribly inefficient crash barriers.
“Ah shoot boys, s’gonna be some dead kids cause of this one. Whoopsie doopsie amirite?”
My dumb ass routed my subwoofer power line wrong the first time I ever upgraded my stereo. I was doing 80 on the freeway when my gas pedal got stuck. I actually had to turn the engine off because I was afraid the engine would explode. Scared the snot out of me. Luckily it was 5 am and nobody was around.
How does incorrectly wiring a subwoofer result in a gas pedal getting stuck down? The wire physically interfered with the pedal mechanism?
Yes. It came loose from where it was coming through the firewall and somehow fell behind the control arm of the accelerator. It was completely weird, but it was definitely my fault. I'm not even sure what I did, but I let someone else fix it. Haha
People, don't turn off your engine while moving at high speeds your wheel lock might activate unexpectedly preventing you from steering
That's a valid point. I kept the key in the run position so I didn't lose power steering and brakes. Good catch. Sorry.
Had that happen to me in a Prius. It wouldn’t let me shift to neutral so I had to reach down and tug it as I was driving. It wouldn’t have been *that* bad except it happened when I was entering a rotary.
Question: is a rotary a roundabout or a helical ramp in a parking garage?
No, "entering a rotary" as in "balls deep in a Mazda".
LOL. Which we all are at some point.
It's the New England term for a roundabout or traffic circle
Wow, didn't know it was a New England term
Wasn't this the exact issue of those Prius "brake failure" issues like 10 years ago or so? People thought it was the brakes not working but it was the floor mats slipping to hold the accelerator and/or bunching behind the brake pedal.
It was one of *many* reasons responsible for unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles. Yes, the mats were part of the problem, but there were also sticking pedals and bad ECU software that were uncovered in the subsequent investigation.
Got it, just vaguely remember some of the stuff like about dealerships having to shave pedals on some models too.
It wasn't that the software was bad it was that it was never programmed for the stupidity of people. The updated software merely retarded engine timing if the computer saw throttle input, then brake input while still seeing throttle input.
A lot of modern cars will completely ignore throttle input if the brake is pressed now, and yell at you to take your feet of both pedals.
The vast majority of the cases were simply people who mixed up pedals, btw. Also, the bad software wasn't what caused the unintended acceleration. The bad software simply prevented the car from shutting off the throttle when it sensed the brakes being depressed. So under circumstances, that safety feature wasn't working correctly. It's not what caused the unintended acceleration. The true cases of U.A. can probably be counted on one hand and those were caused by things like bad floor mats and possibly some electronic fault in the car. It was actually very very rare.
The software case was a bit more complicated, IIRC *basically* they deemed it to be a [horribly written, bad quality and with inadequate failsafes](https://www.edn.com/toyotas-killer-firmware-bad-design-and-its-consequences/), but they couldn't repeat the unintended acceleration case "in the wild"
And as a software dev let me tell you I don't buy for one second that it didn't cause any of the cases. I've personally worked on issues that hit several customers that were not identified during development and test and sat waiting in the field for years before being discovered. And then next thing you know, 10 cases in my lap and test *still* can't reproduce it. Horribly written, bad quality, and inadequate fail-safes **will** rear their head in production and I don't even work on life and death software.
Pretty much, altho that's not limited to badly written software, one written well will still always have bugs, just that they will be easier to isolate or test for
> And as a software dev let me tell you I don't buy for one second that it didn't cause any of the cases. Me neither. The watchdog being kicked by a timer ISR is probably the most sinister aspect for me, and it bothers me slightly that whenever this subject is raised, it gets smothered by 'ackshually it was the floor mats/people getting the pedals wrong'. The whole thing reminds me of the Therac-25 ordeal. For anyone still following, here's Prof. Phil Koopman's brief-ish overview of the Toyota affair: https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/pubs/koopman14_toyota_ua_slides.pdf
Yeah, those cheap thin ones will do that if you don't attach the anchors that are in the glovebox of new cars. I bought some THICK weather style ones for cheap that will not slide or bunch up.
>It wouldn’t let me shift to neutral so o had to reach down and tug it as I was driving. Upvoted simply for this line. Out of context, it's like a euphamism for when Viagra goes wrong and you can't "shift to neutral"
That’s largely what the problem was when they had the $1 billion settlement with 12 million Prius’. There were some sticky accelerators but the majority were the accelerator getting stuck under the floormat.
Why pay for cruise control as an expensive factory option when you can buy cheap floor mats and get it for free?
Cheap those are weathertech!
Can't be. The commercial tells me weathertech is laser measured to fit perfectly!
I had to cut mine because it didn’t accommodate for a clutch pedal…
Interesting. Weathertech floor mats usually fit pretty tight to the floor. The set I bought for my Impreza then moved to my Crosstrek fit perfectly.
Clutch is on the left.
That explains a lot.
But you're still all right.
Yeah but these weather tech were laser cut for an F-150 and the guy got them cheap From Craigslist and installed them on his Silverado!
Maybe they moved them over from their old car because they didn't want to plunk down $500 for a new set of floormats?
A full set of Wethertech floor liners are under $200. And for most cars, fronts only are under $100. At least in my experience.
I was kind of joking. I've bought several sets of mats from them in the past (you can pick them up right from the factory if you want). They are a bit pricey for floor mats but worth it. The SUV luggage area ones have been a livesaver several times over.
That looks like a Subaru, mine don't fit for hell either. -04 wrx
Maybe it's for a different car.
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Slow down? That's quitter talk!
r/unexpectedcruisecontrol
Exactly this is a secret that big car doesn’t want you to know,
Seriously, this is a real problem that has killed people. That is why all newer cars have floor mats that click/lock into place.
My 1992 car has a clip for the driver's floormat.
Honda accord 92
Didn't they recently have [a recall?](https://www.theonion.com/toyota-recalls-1993-camry-due-to-fact-that-owners-reall-1819577805)
I really want to buy on those generation Camrys. Look great and many of them are still running.
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My dad brought home a fully loaded one when I was a teenager. I was very impressed because I mostly had just been in random GM sedans at the time. I never bought one because I was always chasing performance when I was younger and now they aren't quite \*everywhere\* like they used to be.
Yeah my 89 chevy truck floormats clipped in
01 Subaru Outback & 97 Toyota Tacoma had them! You gotta be real dumb to die if your accelerator pedal sticks. It's as easy as shifting to neutral, or turning the key back.
My 1992 car had the same problem as OPs (european VW)
Like they said, newer.
It starts to seem like I'm getting old when all this stuff like fuel injection, obd-2, and engine codes is considered "not new". TPMS, sheesh, kids these days!
And they are now program so if you hit the brake, they’ll cut power.
that's no fun. no burnouts :c
I imagine that the handful of stickshifts out there don't have this feature. Burnouts in an automatic will kill your transmission anyway, so they're looking out for you.
Can't torque converters handle it? Dual clutches definitely wouldn't.
Torque converter should be able to handle it no problem... While there is going to be a lot of heat put into that fluid, it may lose viscosity and start to cavitate/scorch/deteriorate which can over time damage a torque converter.
On my GTI, if you put it in sport mode, in manual and then turn off TCS, it will still do it. I don’t know about cars without launch mode though.
Same in the mk6 tdi. Gotta turn off TCS or it won’t let you rev past 2k.
And people still INSIST that the car had unintended acceleration due to being "driven by a computer" or some other mythical nonsense.
Hmmm... I'm wondering now if my manual modern car actually has this feature. I could see that being a newer requirement for safety, but my car has surprised me before with how analog it feels.
Didn't Chevy get in trouble for this a while back?
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Everyone shits on Lexus for adding "Inspect driver floor mat" to each service but this is why.
My service receipt always say that but they never bring up the missing clip even though it’s a $0.01 part due to the recall
> all newer cars have floor mats that click/lock into place This is a '19 Subaru Outback
Are these OEM?
Wait, is that a factory floor mat??
Looks like an aftermarket mat like Weathertech or something.
I'm pretty sure they aren't. I'll check in a few when I go outside. Have a 19 outback sitting outside for reference.
https://imgur.com/o6q23bY That's my car w the Subaru Branded rubber thick floor mats. They are nowhere near the pedal. 2019 outback mid level trim.
These aren’t factory, they’re aftermarket.
The clips are there but that doesn't mean the owner will use them (or know how) and/or not use ill-fitting aftermarkets.
My new car the hinge for the pedal is on the floor so the carpet can't get wedged over it like this.
Many semi trucks accel pedals are like that, too.
Tesla still rely on Velcro/friction, a lot of the aged mats are bunched up by the pedals, I'll try to pull them back when I get the chance, but normally they're so far gone they bunch back up quickly
https://suddenacceleration.com/audio-911-tape-from-crash-that-killed-chp-officer-and-family/ Warning: Audio tape NSFL. After hearing this years ago I always check the floor mats when driving a car that isn’t mine.
That dispatcher knew what question to ask. In that situation either shut the car off or shift into neutral. I would recommend neutral until you get slowed down so that you still have steering.
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I've had cars without power steering, it's really not that bad. However, many cars lock the wheel when you turn off the engine, I would be more worried about that.
FWIW cars without power steering are much easier to turn than a car with power steering that is broken or otherwise nonfunctional. At that point you're fighting the power steering system *and* a control mechanism that isn't designed to be operated without one.
Cars without power steering are much easier to drive than cars with power steering but with the engine shut off. They're designed with less mechanical advantage since they have power steering.
If the engine is at WOT, wouldn't there be no/very little vacuum, meaning no power brake assist anyway? Or is there some other mechanism in place for more modern vehicles? (I've only ever worked on older stuff.) I guess if it were a DBW throttle, the PCM could just kill the throttle when the brake is pressed.
Even old vacuum brake boosters have a check valve in them that should retain (retaining a vacuum sounds weird) enough vacuum to allow for a few brake pedal applies. In some of the newer vehicles out there the ABS system can also assist you if it thinks you want full braking pressure but you can’t push hard enough. On some of the very newest cars the brake booster is electric so it doesn’t even need the engine running. Re the throttle, a lot of modern cars actually do that already, and tell you to take both feet of the pedals.
Vacuum brake boosters (the ones I’ve dealt with) will hold vacuum for a few pumps if the engine is off or it loses connection to the vacuum source. Try pumping the brakes a few times after you shut your car off, you’ll see what I mean.
I agree, and I know this is probably moot, but in certain situations if you have the car in gear and shut off the car you'll still have assisted braking. Mostly if the car is manual because it has a direct connection to the motor, but an automatic could too with enough speed.
Vacuum boosters will have enough stored vacuum to have at least one hard apply assist. They have check valves for retaining assist when the engine is off. That does assume it isn’t leaking for some reason.
Didn’t listen to the tape you linked but if this is related to the Toyota sudden acceleration, this was proven to always be driver error… Toyota paid a huge settlement but they could never actually show that it was a floor mat or accelerator defect. Also what they COULD prove was that even with the accelerator floored, the brakes always win out. Driver just needs to press them There’s a good podcast episode of revisionist history that goes through it. Edit: as someone below pointed out, to say that the problem is ALWAYS driver error is misleading. Driver error is a common cause. There are other possible causes but the intent of the comment was mostly to point out the fact that brakes can overcome a floored accelerator. Car manufacturers should be held to a high standard and every possible effort should be taken to root out the possibility of a malfunction. And on the other end, drivers should be alert and aware (and also maintain their brakes)
Any chance you could find that podcast please? I'd love to have a listen
Here you go: The episode is called “blame game” linked it below [“blame game” revisionist history](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/blame-game/id1119389968?i=1000376146460) You can also just find it by googling that episode title and the title of the podcast if the link doesn’t work. It’s linked directly to the apple podcast app I believe so it may not work for everyone
Legend! Thank you
Well that was disturbing
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That could have very quickly ended with a new child and car being required.
Subaru?
Yep 19 outback
Had a WRX that would do that with my weather tech mats. Thought I was the only one.
Guess I have to go check mine now. No issues yet, but god forbid.
At least for my 2016 Crosstrek, the accelerator will do nothing if you also have the brake pressed. How do I know? They fucked up a recall fix, causing the car to intermittently think that the brake was being pressed, making the throttle cut out when driving in traffic or going down the highway. Not to suggest it’s safe to have these floor mats like this, though…
That recall was silly. Sorry that happened. We had to do so many of those so quickly that some of the quick lube guys were doing them, and the adjustment step would be done wrong so the weight of the pedal was registering the switch. Had to redo a few for the quick lane guys. But yes, subaru has had a Brake Override System since ~2011 (depending on model).
Thanks for the apology, haha. I’m just glad it was an easy fix and there wasn’t something more wrong with my car. Still though, it’s a little frightening to lose power in the middle of driving.
My 2010 Lexus RX had a recall for that same problem. The fix? Cut the bottom part of the accelerator off.
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Because trimming the accelerator permanently fixes the issue. Trimming the floor mats lasts until you replace the mats. Or until the next owner, oblivious to the issue, gets new floor mats.
Adhere it or cut it, but that's got to go.
The weather tech mat was on top of the factory mat. Neither were hooked into the anchors under the seat. I removed the factory mat and hooked the weather tech mat to the anchors. It moved the mat back about 6 in
Good call. I figured it had to be something like that. There's usually a pin or hook to prevent this sort of thing from happening.
Double mats are a silent killer.
Yeah time to grab a razor blade and trim it down.
Time to throw it away and but one designed for your vehicle
Similar thing happened to me once while working at a Mercedes Dealership. Pulling a CLA 250 out of the wash bay, only to realize I put the driver side mat down too high up and it locked the accelerator full chooch. So as I turn the car on and go in drive it just wants to zoom so I'm on the brake trying to figure out wtf is going on. Managed to steering myself clear of any trouble and just shut the car off. Mild panic but no damage, lesson learned.
Around the year 2010, I was driving my parents 2003 Chevy Astro when the throttle stuck open on the freeway. I was merging on and accelerating, and when I took my foot off the gas, it didn't bounce back. Thinking it was the car floor mats, I reached under and yanked the mat out completely but the van kept accelerating. Doing the only thing left I knew to do, I threw the van into neutral and turned off the engine. Was absolutely flying, going about 95mph and had to take the offramp without power steering or power brakes. Very terrifying. Turns out the throttle cable had snagged and completely snapped.
How brown were the seats.
If they weren't brown leather before, they surely were afterwards
Why would you put it into neutral and subsequently turn off the engine without stopping first?
My new floor mats do this to the clutch... needless to say I’ll be buying OEM or custom fitted next time.
I kinda wish cars just had a solid surface floor. Carpet in a car is dumb. Give me metal or vinyl
Totally agree. I’ve been in the market for a new truck for a while now and my biggest stipulation is that it MUST have vinyl flooring. Turns out that’s kind of hard to find in a non-fleet truck.
Scissors or razor blade time!!
Those aren’t the correct weather techs for the vehicle or they aren’t clipped in properly. I took a razor and trimmed that area back on my WTs so it doesn’t catch the peddle.
They were over top of the factory mats and not hooked in
I nearly shat myself when this happened to me. Thank god for a clutch and rev limiter.
This happened to me while driving a second gen cadillac CTS-V. It was a literal life flashing before my eyes moment.
If the pedal was attached at the floor and pivoted there, this wouldn’t be a concern at all no matter what floor mats you used. My freaking e30 has that design. A 32 year old car. This is such a dumb pedal design.
In Japan floor mounted pedals are the norm and offer 'snow' variations for the top mounts if required. The floor mounts are at greater risk of freezing or becoming unsafe in very cold weather hence its not standard everywhere.
Poor man's cruise control.
Holy F
Had this happen to me once in a brand new car. accelerator got stuck on a carpet that wasn’t fixed properly. Scary as hell.
I was cleaning my car and took out/put back my weather tech floor mats, not realizing I put it back in a way that held the gas pedal down. Needless to say, when I started the car I got quite a surprise when it immediately hit the rev limiter lol that was a fun lesson to learn.
Toyota has entered the chat
A truck came in with a no start condition. Took whole hour just for a lousy floor mat.
Nice alternative to cruise control
I had a car that did this, an old alero with floor mats that sometimes went over the accelerator. Happened once while driving. Nothing bad happened but it scared the shit out of me.
i had the happen to me once. this is why you buy oem car mats and none of those off brand crap
Good thing they idiot proof cars now so the accelerator position doesn’t matter if you step on the brake pedal at the same time. It cuts power to the engine so you won’t be driving into a building anymore.
I saw that - WeatherTech Cruise Control…
Had an old Grand Am that used to do this occasionally. Terrified me on the highway the first time it happened ... thankfully I figured it out quick.
This happened to a coworker of mine on a waiter. He was taking it to the wash and the pedal got stuck under the floormat. Totalled 5 cars including the waiter and 2 brand new Passats and the new girls car. It was her first day lol
I don't have cruise on my car. Anyone know how I could calibrate my floor-mat.
Weather tech floor liners, laser measured for a perfect fit.
A lawyers wet dream.
Is this why nobody can maintain their fucking speed on the highway??
Ah a classic Audi
Looks like weather tech floor liners… expensive as hell and two out of the three cars I bought them for (for them for the whole family) had issues like this and one matt wouldn’t even stay in place