Accelerator stuck @ 135mph

[Enfield]

I cant hear the audio bbc thing because it crashes firefox and fails in IE. realplayer streaming crapness I think

Here, try this one mate

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolavconsole/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_4790000/newsid_4796400/bb_wm_4796468.stm

 

[Dave85]

some of you realy are imature pathetic people tbh.

The guy was on the mobile to the police doing as he was told, but oh no all you super people wanna be racing drivers would have easily solved it yourselfs.

and not only that but you acuse him that his car realy didnt lock the auto box and brakes failed.

His brakes failed because he aas trying to slow down his gearbox wouldnt lock and he was told not to remove the key, even the racing driver who knows a lot more than you people do said that wouldnt be a good idea.

so for god sake get a grip and just be glad the poor guy is okay.

sometimes you lot make me sick

 

[geiger]

Thanks that works, got a radio phone in I think.

Yea I hear what he is saying, I cant believe that women racing driver agrees with not turning off the ignition but maybe the car is badly designed and it 'locks the steering wheel up' Anyone driven a 98 auto BMW 318?

Any normal car would lose the power steering but still steer fine, especially at that speed. You dont need power steering on the motorway, its for parking and low speeds. The brakes even unassisted should work without engine on (yes I know they were wrecked by then), gears also.

I just dont agree, he should be banned with an extended retest. My hats off to BMW for being muppet proof, sounds like he crashed at speed and the car did its job. Pity it burnt out as that most likely destroyed the ecu and any evidence against him

 

[Simon]

Turning the key from 2 to 1 would have cut the ignition coil and fuel pump off. The key would have still been in and so steering would not be a problem.

Regardless of anything, with the throttle fully open there would be no vacuum in the inlet manifold so the brakes would not be assisted, however they would still work, even if they failed the car would soon roll to a stop

He could have quite easily stopped the car IMO.

 

[willd58]

sometimes you lot make me sick

I wouldnt go that far, but i have to say im glad someone else is with me in the general opinion of it all.

 

[Simon]

I wouldnt go that far, but i have to say im glad someone else is with me in the general opinion of it all.

I don't get it. Anyone with some common sense could have just turned the key to 1 and still remained in full control of the car

 

[DRZ]

I have been in a situation where I have had an engine cut out on me while braking hard(ish) from similar speeds.

I stopped.

QED.

 

[thebrasso]

I'm no mechanic at all but what could have caused his car to continue accelerating? I guess at a ton plus on a road with traffic present it'd be quite easy to panic. I know I would.

I know that although his PAS would turn off turning his igniton off but he would still have steering and brakes, but surely he was also thinking that if he turned the ignition off he might totally lose steering control? That and I imagine it was a brown trouser moment for him.

I don't think its right calling somebody a muppet just because they didn't appear to do the right thing in the situation. Especially without knowing the full story i.e. mechanical failure.

 

[Sam]

Isnt the accelerator sticking problem apprent on most BMW E36 318s?, especially at traffic lights

 

[energy]

1st gear? He was going '135mph', that' 5th :| Massive difference.

Yes, much faster meaning much more heat to be dissipated, but what I was trying to say was that it takes very little effort to brake a car running in fifth gear. I would expect it to slow down rapidly, almost as if the accelerator was not even depressed at all as the engine applies minimal torque to the wheels in top gear.

I was using first gear as an example, which typically is four times shorter than fifth gear so should have little trouble overpowering the brakes with, I would guess, over 1000lb/ft of torque at the wheels of even a poxy 318, however, try it and you'll find that the brakes would still grind it to a halt.

The only issue is heat buildup but I would have thought the car would have stopped by the time the brakes would have faded enough to be innefective

Evidently its not the case, but I'm very surprised.

EDIT: Simon makes a good point about loosing assistance with an open throttle. This could very well be the case if the driver pumped on the pedal a few times rather than keep his foot down continually, something that most people wouldn't know and/or would not be in the state of mind required to do so.

 

[Hawk Tuah]

The torque convertor, by virtue of the braking effect the engine will place on it relative to the rest of the drivetrain. There's no clutch in an auto and the wheels are never fully disconnected from the engine. This is why you shouldn't tow autos more than a short distance at a low speed.

Still, how is that going to lock the rear wheels? Cutting the ignition to an engine doesn't instantly grind the engine to a dead stop.

 

[Scania]

Sounds very familiar tale of utter crap if you ask me!

Mystery Shrouds Runaway Lorry

Mystery surrounds the runaway lorry that careered down the M1 at 80 miles per hour.

Lorry driver Michael Rayner was hailed a hero after he brought his lorry to a standstill on the motorway near Scratchwood Service Area after the accelerator had jammed.

Scania, the manufacturer of the lorry, has said that an investigation into the incident has revealed that the speed limiter, that should have kept the speed of the lorry down, had been replaced with a non-Scania engine-speed limiting device which damaged the truck's throttle linkage, forcing the accelerator to jam. Both the speed limiter and the braking system were found to be working properly.

The Metropolitan Police have launched their own investigation into the incident.

Mr Rayner, 26, from Hawkshead Road, Little Heath, near Potters Bar, was driving the 38-tonne articulated lorry southbound on the M1 on Sunday when his accelerator jammed just after he reached junction ten at Luton airport.

He frantically pressed the brakes which fused the brake pads and put them out of action.

He dialled 999 on his mobile phone and Hertfordshire police sent a car and a helicopter to join him at Hemel Hempstead.

PC Patrick Jones of Hertfordshire traffic police was in the car that joined Mr Rayner at junction eight. He said: "We tried to get the rest of the traffic out of the way so that he could use the whole motorway."

The police control room was giving advice to Mr Rayner while he was driving, but PC Jones said that the driver's mobile phone would occasionally cut out. "When that happened, we would pull up beside him and I would shout advice to him out of my window. I was trying to reassure him all the time as he was panicking a bit," he said.

The police told Mr Rayner to switch off the engine while he was driving or put the gears into neutral so that the lorry could slow down. But PC Jones said: "As he had not been driving HGVs for very long, he did not know what would happen if he did either of those things. He knew that if he switched off the engine there was a chance that the power steering would fail and that was something that he did not want."

When the truck reached Watford, more police cars joined in to keep traffic away from the vehicle.

As the truck passed Scratchwood Service Area PC Jones said he told Mr Rayner that he had no choice but to turn the engine off. "We were only one or two miles away from the Staples Corner roundabout and the consequences of a 38-tonne lorry crashing into that does not bear thinking about."

Mr Rayner pulled over on to the hard shoulder and switched the engine off as he drove into the crash barrier, coming to a halt near Scratchwood Services. He escaped unhurt, although he was badly shaken.

National newspapers revealed this week that Mr Rayner served five years in jail for assaulting a toddler. The reason given at the trial was that he was suffering from the attention seeking disorder. Mr Rayner has denied that he suffered from the disorder and that he had tampered with the controls of the lorry to cause the accident.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000.Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.

9:30am Saturday 16th May 1998

Iirc, the driver was subsequently found in the wrong, and prosecuted.

Deja Vu?

Switch off ignition, let the car coast to a stop, the chances of all three faliures imo are virtually nil, unless, of corse, he was driving an un-raodworthy vehicle, in which case, the coppers will do him.

Note, I have experience of both marques.

Fame seeking idiots, both of them.

 

[Mr.T]

Out of interest what would happen if you turned off the engine at 100 plus then tried to start it again ( at 100)?

 

[Vertigo]

Still, how is that going to lock the rear wheels? Cutting the ignition to an engine doesn't instantly grind the engine to a dead stop.

I see your point there. I suppose it's possible that the wheels and drivetrain, via the torque convertor, would keep the engine turning over at a decent rate.

I assumed the resistance of the engine to being turned over by the drivetrain, especially in a high gear, would be too much and the wheels would lock up. By "lock up" I mean slow enough to lose traction with the road, if not stop completely.

 

[Scania]

Out of interest what would happen if you turned off the engine at 100 plus then tried to start it again ( at 100)?

It would in theory re-start, well, cartainly on a manual transmission.

I don't think the same applies to an auto.

 

[Moorron]

had my throttle spring brake, just as fun, but best was when my clutch cable snapped, i managed to drive 30 miles without using it. That was fun, trying to not stop moving. after that i just changed gear without using the clutch most of the time. damn renaults

 

[geiger]

You can bump start a car at 100 just the same as 10mph, the engine doesnt care how fast your going the only important thing is that you use the right gear to do so.
As I mentioned previously my old landlord would bump start his car at 70mph every day on his way to uni, silly yes but not massively dangerous or impossibly hard.

You can also just turn the ignition in neutral while traveling at 70 and start it and then gently drop the clutch into 5th gear.

This is on a manual not an auto

 

[chopchop]

I see your point there. I suppose it's possible that the wheels and drivetrain, via the torque convertor, would keep the engine turning over at a decent rate.

I assumed the resistance of the engine to being turned over by the drivetrain, especially in a high gear, would be too much and the wheels would lock up. By "lock up" I mean slow enough to lose traction with the road, if not stop completely.

it only works one way, that is that the engine must be running for the gearbox to send power to the wheels. the wheels cannot make the engine turn.

 

[jonneh]

Turning the key from 2 to 1 would have cut the ignition coil and fuel pump off. The key would have still been in and so steering would not be a problem.

Regardless of anything, with the throttle fully open there would be no vacuum in the inlet manifold so the brakes would not be assisted, however they would still work, even if they failed the car would soon roll to a stop

He could have quite easily stopped the car IMO.

surly just cutting the ignition would mean the engine would still be turning, just not firing, so still creating a vacuum in the manifold??
correct me if im wrong, never driven an auto, does cutting the ignition disconect the gears?

also again correct me if im wrong,
doesnt the vacuum just pull the pads apart?? so the calipers need less strong/no springs to return them?
how does the servo assist braking?

 

[jonneh]

it only works one way, that is that the engine must be running for the gearbox to send power to the wheels. the wheels cannot make the engine turn.

so you cant engine brake in an auto??