In article ,
Rob Graham wrote:
If your accelerator is jammed down and you declutch or put the car into
neutral I guess the engine would blow up now that the load has been
taken off it. It seems to me that the only sensible course of action is
to switch it off.

Not on a modern car. They all have rev limiters built into the engine
management. So should survive running at max revs for long enough to find
a way of stopping it. Like the ignition switch. Diesels have always had
rev limiters. But called governors in older times.

--
*To err is human. To forgive is against company policy.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Rob Graham wrote:
On 05/02/2010 09:05, Duncan Wood wrote:
On Fri, 05 Feb 2010 07:29:22 -0000, GB
wrote:
David Taylor wrote:
On 2010-02-04, GB wrote:
Say your accelerator jammed. Well, how long would it take you to
figure this out and depress the clutch/put it into neutral?
Especially an experienced driver like a highway patrolman. 5
seconds? Well, surely not long enough to make a 911 call.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle7012913.ece


What's actually going on here? Suicide, and he wanted to take his
family with him?

Automatic, keyless ignition.

An auto box without a neutral position on the selector?




& ~I've yet to see a keyless ignition you can't turn off, or a Toyota
that wouldn't stop if you stood on the footbrake in 5th. Thereagain
there are some people who are too daft to try turning off the
ignition or puttung the car into neutral.

If your accelerator is jammed down and you declutch or put the car
into neutral I guess the engine would blow up now that the load has
been taken off it. It seems to me that the only sensible course of
action is to switch it off.

That's what I thought of at first but you'd lose power steering and
servo-assisted braking.

On 2010-02-05, Duncan Wood wrote:
On Fri, 05 Feb 2010 07:29:22 -0000, GB wrote:
David Taylor wrote:
On 2010-02-04, GB wrote:

Automatic, keyless ignition.

An auto box without a neutral position on the selector?

& ~I've yet to see a keyless ignition you can't turn off, or a Toyota that
wouldn't stop if you stood on the footbrake in 5th. Thereagain there are
some people who are too daft to try turning off the ignition or puttung
the car into neutral.

ISTR reading that some keyless ignitions were "hard" to turn off whilst
moving. You had the hold down the 'START' button for several seconds,
or something. I can see someone not trying that whilst panicking.

As for neutral / braking? I don't know. I guess he was too busy
praying for God to help him to bother to think for himself.

--
David Taylor

In article , Dave says...

That's what I thought of at first but you'd lose power steering and
servo-assisted braking.

And? You can still steer and stop.


--
Conor

I'm not prejudiced. I hate everybody equally.

Duncan Wood wrote:

On Fri, 05 Feb 2010 07:29:22 -0000, GB
wrote:

David Taylor wrote:
On 2010-02-04, GB wrote:
Say your accelerator jammed. Well, how long would it take you to
figure this out and depress the clutch/put it into neutral?
Especially an experienced driver like a highway patrolman. 5
seconds? Well, surely not long enough to make a 911 call.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new..._americas/arti
cle7012913.ece

What's actually going on here? Suicide, and he wanted to take
his family with him?

Automatic, keyless ignition.

An auto box without a neutral position on the selector?




& ~I've yet to see a keyless ignition you can't turn off, or a Toyota
that wouldn't stop if you stood on the footbrake in 5th. Thereagain
there are some people who are too daft to try turning off the
ignition or puttung the car into neutral.

... and when people simply panic?

It's entirely feasible that any car can be stopped easily, just as it's
entirely feasible that not everybody has the presence of mind to work
out what to do when it actually happens.

--
Paul - xxx

'96/'97 Landrover Discovery 300 Tdi
Dyna Tech Cro-Mo comp

Dave wrote:
Rob Graham wrote:
On 05/02/2010 09:05, Duncan Wood wrote:
On Fri, 05 Feb 2010 07:29:22 -0000, GB
wrote:
David Taylor wrote:
On 2010-02-04, GB wrote:
Say your accelerator jammed. Well, how long would it take you to
figure this out and depress the clutch/put it into neutral?
Especially an experienced driver like a highway patrolman. 5
seconds? Well, surely not long enough to make a 911 call.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle7012913.ece


What's actually going on here? Suicide, and he wanted to take his
family with him?
Automatic, keyless ignition.
An auto box without a neutral position on the selector?



& ~I've yet to see a keyless ignition you can't turn off, or a Toyota
that wouldn't stop if you stood on the footbrake in 5th. Thereagain
there are some people who are too daft to try turning off the
ignition or puttung the car into neutral.
If your accelerator is jammed down and you declutch or put the car
into neutral I guess the engine would blow up now that the load has
been taken off it. It seems to me that the only sensible course of
action is to switch it off.

That's what I thought of at first but you'd lose power steering and
servo-assisted braking.

Servo assistance won't last long at wide open throttle whether the
engine is running or not.

I think the brakes would have to be pretty good to stop a car in gear at
full throttle from high speed. I can't say I have ever tried mind you.

Power steering would work fine with the car in gear engine on or off as
long as its not a clever electrically powered system, and anyway, the
steering would just go heavy, not immovable with a loss of power.

Dunno what the answer is.

--
Douglas

On 05/02/2010 13:48, Douglas Payne wrote:
Dave wrote:
Rob Graham wrote:
On 05/02/2010 09:05, Duncan Wood wrote:
On Fri, 05 Feb 2010 07:29:22 -0000, GB
wrote:
David Taylor wrote:
On 2010-02-04, GB wrote:
Say your accelerator jammed. Well, how long would it take you to
figure this out and depress the clutch/put it into neutral?
Especially an experienced driver like a highway patrolman. 5
seconds? Well, surely not long enough to make a 911 call.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle7012913.ece



What's actually going on here? Suicide, and he wanted to take his
family with him?
Automatic, keyless ignition.
An auto box without a neutral position on the selector?



& ~I've yet to see a keyless ignition you can't turn off, or a Toyota
that wouldn't stop if you stood on the footbrake in 5th. Thereagain
there are some people who are too daft to try turning off the
ignition or puttung the car into neutral.
If your accelerator is jammed down and you declutch or put the car
into neutral I guess the engine would blow up now that the load has
been taken off it. It seems to me that the only sensible course of
action is to switch it off.

That's what I thought of at first but you'd lose power steering and
servo-assisted braking.


I'm now informed that modern cars' engines won't go faster than a
certain amount, so won't blow up. In which case, going into neutral
would be fine.

A friend's wife was driving their 1985 Merc when the accelerator linkage
popped off and she was left with a racing car. Although the vehicle was
not exactly new, it was injection. But I don't know whether it was
governed to a maximum speed. If I'd been driving it I'd have turned it off.

Rob

thomas wrote:

The advice given on the News last night ( speaking about the Toyota
story) was to put car in neutral,brake normally ( no pumping of brake
pedal) and steer to a safe place THEN switch off the ignition
....not to switch off before that as the power steering and braking
ability would be affected .
exactly - modern petrol cars rev to the red line /maximum revs /
(hits the limiter) and no more - I doubt whether it would "blow up"

I can't help feeling that blowing up the engine in these circumstances would
not be top of my list of worries. Serve the damn thing right!


--
Electric cars are very healthy - when the battery runs out you have to
walk home.

On 05/02/2010 13:48, Douglas Payne wrote:


Power steering would work fine with the car in gear engine on or off as
long as its not a clever electrically powered system, and anyway, the
steering would just go heavy, not immovable with a loss of power.

Problem is that on some cars like the new Mini, manual steering is
unfortunately a bit on the heavy side of heavy.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/..._failures.html


Dunno what the answer is.


Eject a boat anchor out of the boot ...

--
Adrian C

On 05/02/2010 07:29, GB wrote:
David Taylor wrote:
On 2010-02-04, wrote:
Say your accelerator jammed. Well, how long would it take you to
figure this out and depress the clutch/put it into neutral?
Especially an experienced driver like a highway patrolman. 5
seconds? Well, surely not long enough to make a 911 call.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle7012913.ece

What's actually going on here? Suicide, and he wanted to take his
family with him?

Automatic, keyless ignition.

An auto box without a neutral position on the selector?



Does such a beast exist? I *thought* that construction and use specifies
that there must be a way to directly select neutral, even if you have
flappy paddles.