Safe Speed Forums

Yes, in one of the articles above it said that he told the police his brakes had failed. No mention of the accelerator being stuck on. No policeman would NOT tell him to turn off the ignition, surely?

It's all very fishy, and no doubt the truth will out in the next couple of days, and the media will cover it up, as they've made such fools of themselves by not questioning the whole story. Why the police aren't prosecuting him and questioning him more is beyond me.

Yes, it's all getting fishier by the minute. Well investigated. A pity the media didn't bother questioning anything he said.
Personally I think they throw out these stupid stories to test how gullible the public really are. Like that one in America where a man claimed that a mouse he had thrown onto a pile of burning leaves ran into his house, on fire, and burnt the house down...
How much hair is there on a mouse? Would it even burn for more than a split second? What did the mouse run into to set the house on fire, so quickly that the man couldn't put it out? Gunpowder?

This driver's story is just as bogus, and obviously so.

Because he was running up the hard shoulder, which runs off with the A1.

If he had turned the ignition off between the A64 and M1 he wouldn't have needed his brakes anyway, and it's fairly straight so he wouldn't have needed to steer either.

Another thing pozzling me.

He hits a roundabout at 130mph and walks away with a bruised chin? I don't think so. Which means he slowed down beforehand, which is not in keeping with the rest of the story.

Four things:

1) It was an auto, so knocking it out of gear without adjunctive removal of power would have been possible, but would likely have written off the power un it (probably uninsured loss and expensive). I have never tried, but I can well believe it is interlocked and not possible to do over a certain speed.

2) Turning it off leaving it in gear would likely have also written HIM off as well as the gearbox. It would have dropped into a get-you-home gear, probably 2nd or 3rd and overrevved engine, gearabox - might have ripped out clutchplates and also snapped driveshafts etc. Might even have spun him at very high speed with a locked back wheel or two.

3) Is this a modern or old beamer?

4) Have BMW commented?

What would I have done? Turned it off and knocked it out of gear as the engine let go. BUT I know automatics. Even that is a risky manouevre. Mistime it and one or other of 1) and 2) might have happened. Had that not workd, I'd have kept turning it on and off at high speed - class D modulated the power.

Nah. The engine would just bounce off the rev limiter. Lots of noise. No damage.



Such a feature would be very dangerous. Just one loose connection and your gearbox might downshift at v max? Surely not?



1998 I think. One of the articles mentioned it.



Variously.



I don't think you can call it class D unless it's an amplifier. Would you settle for PWM?

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I think with fixed throttle full on the engine is an amp, but yes I'll settle for PWM

In 1), you are assuming a rev limiter. I guess this depends on the age of the car.

In 2), there MAY be an "override" in fluididynamics to the "electronic" commands. There used to be, but I know not if there still is.

I've found out why he said he thought he would burn to death- the car finished up on its roof. (He didn't mention any of this in the interview!).
But you're absolutely right, you can't hit a roundabout at 130mph without suffering serious injuries, more likely death.

So the whole thing's full of holes, but none of the fools in the media question any of it!

Time to throw a spanner into the works, methinks.

FWIW, I used to work for BMW in the late 1990s, where I heard rumours of computer failures causing serious safety issues. Now, what follows is pure hearsay gleaned through the company "grapevine", and I can't substantiate it, but there does appear to be a coincidence.

The cars allegedly affected were mainly German home-market vehicles from the first half of R-registration. The root cause was claimed to be RF interference. The majority of alleged cases involved ABS failure in the vicinity of radio masts although some throttle failures were also mentioned. However, in every throttle failure that I've heard about until now the throttle failed safe (i.e. shut). Some failures were allegedly caused by the driver using a mobile phone and IIRC, some advice was mooted (if not actually issued) to turn off mobile phones before driving. The reason why I remember this so well is that mobile phones were still a bit of a status symbol at the time, and these cars were among the most-likely to be driven by a moby-toter. We know that the motorist had a mobile, because he used it to dial 999.

Reading the report, I understand that the motorist couldn't shift gear, and so could not put the car into neutral. FWIW, I can't do that on my auto while in motion - so I suspect that it's a safety interlock to prevent damage to the gears or even the inadvertent shifting into reverse. However, like many posting in this thread, I can't understand why he didn't turn off the ignition and why nobody advised him to take that simple action. With the ignition turned off, you can still steer in roughly the right direction and bring the car to rest using either the foot brake or the hand brake (which must be direct, mechanical operation) if the foot brake was US.

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Will

This story sounds bizzare if nothing else. If the acclerator stuck on, how come he didn't realise sooner? I was once driving a Kangoo van and the accelertor jammed open on that and I realised within moments of it happening. Since it was manual I obviously was able to dip the clutch and raise until I found a safe gap to pull in.

If the throttle hadn't jammed open fully, surely the brakes(discs all round?) would have made a better fight at slowing the car down? Surely then he would have considered cutting the power at a more respectable speed. In my last Capri I had a ignition module failure which lost me all power yet I was able to steer(it did have power steering) and stop without a problem. Fair enough technology has moved on but surely that wouldn't make it less safe?

Hitting a roundabout at 135mph? Either the story is a load of rubbish or him and everyone else in the area are the luckiest people alive.

I don't believe this at all.

The car must be designed to cope with the engine cutting out suddenly at normal cruising speed.

What if you run out of fuel? What if the ignition system fails? Both much more likely than the trottle sticking.

I can only see it either acting like a manual left in the appropriate gear for the speed, i.e. engine braking but not the violent engine braking you would get by dropping a few gears. Or it would act like a manual with the clutch depressed. Either outcome would be better than careering on at three figure speeds.

And yet ANOTHER angle that we haven't fully explored...

The brakes would easily beat the engine (at least before they got cooked). A good firm application of footbrake would easily allow the car to be stopped even with the engine in opposition on full throttle.

If the driver was weak on the brakes (down to 70mph indeed!) it's possible he would have cooked them in a few miles, but even if the 'power steering' claims were true (which they absolutely are not) the driver could have brought the car to a stop on the footbrake then turned off the ignition. With a manual it would just have stalled of course.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

That picture of him doesn't fill me with confidence, he hardly looked like a pillar of society, not that I'm prejudging in anyway.

I really can't imagine that a throttle would stick open on any car with an ecu, surely the defalt postion is shut? If your cam belt snaps they engine dies all of a sudden and this must happen every day somewhere, so where's the carnage?

Given the choice between hitting a roundabout at over 130 mph (unless it was very big) and lunching me gearbox, then the gearbox gets it I'm affraid.

I bet the reason his throttle was suck open was because there was his big fat hoof on it.

Maybe it was hot wired?

Have you ever tryed ratching under the dash with a set of mole grips at 70mph

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Signal Thumbs Down http://www.donate-a-mate.com/std

i dont believe him either but he could have 'cooked' the brake fluid a lot quicker than that... if its a 98 who wants to bet its got eight year old brake fluid in it.....

Even in that case, once he'd realised that he'd got a "runaway" (IIRC at about 70mph), if he'd just planted the brakes he'd have stopped the thing before the fluid boiled. As Paul says, the brakes should easily overpower the engine - and if it's at the cost of wrecking the torque-converter, so be it...

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"Politicians are the same the world over... We build bridges where there aren't any rivers." - Nikita Kruschev

It's not the loss of engine power, it's the loss of volts to the solenoids on the gearbox to tell it which gear to select. the solenoids all release, and that selects a middle gear of some sort, usually second or third, with the idea that you still have a fairly reasonable gear to limp along with a total gearbox electric/electronic failure.

In the higher gears, yes brakes will win. but bear in mind if it is full throttle it will be gearing down and fighting back - probably into second by the time you're down to about 50. I doubt the brakes would win then.

The brakes would win easily - even against 1st gear. Just think how easily we get 1g braking and how elusive 1g acceleration is (0 to 60 in 2.8 seconds for an average of 1g). And it's only a 318i!

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Now just a thought - VAG have a software link between brakes and throttle - just try and dry out the brakes on one whilst driving - it slows down - has been on since R/S vintage.
BMW being of same stable - do they have that ??

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Possibly, possibly not. If I cast my mind back to pre-abs days, I'm sure I could spin the wheels on take off much easier than I could lock the wheels on stopping.

Also, a stall test in a RWD auto is notoriously difficult as the brake compensator limits what the brakes can do to the back wheels. might end up donuting.