Re: Your guys' take on the Toyota recalls?
NOT the way I would do it at all. You turn the ignition off, you lose a lot of control.
The way I was taught, and told my wife to do it is to throw it in neutral, and pull over safely, still having full power brakes and steering. THEN turn the ign off.....
Good info skargo. I had a full-on unintended acceleration issue last year.
I was turing right out of a residential side street onto quite a fast intermediate road. I hammered it from a dead stop to get into a clear spot before oncoming traffic reached me. I merged and it was all good until I lifted off the gas and....no effect. I was still under full acceleration.
This was a Mazda Millenia S type (supercharged, intercooled V6) so it had some scat to it. Before I realized it I was climbing through 130 km/h.
First came the panic-driven, ingrained solutions. I get on the brakes hard - real hard and although the car is slowing I realize it isn't nearly effective enough considering the distance and velocity. Smoke begins pouring out of the front wheel wells as the brake pads overheat. I can't imagine what the traffic behind me was thinking. By now I'm about 500 metres from my first intersection. The light is red and there's a good flow of cross traffic and I'm approaching twice the posted speed limit and the engine is bouncing off the rev limiter.
Then some other ideas. I tried feeling around with my right toe to see where the hell the accelerator pedal was at. It seemed to be flat against the floor. I tried prying it up with my toe but no dice. So I'm thinking is the linkage jammed under the hood somehow? I tried reaching down with my hand to pull it up but I couldn't reach it and still see where I was going.
Then, finally, it comes to me. Turn the ignition off. I was very aware of the conscious concern not to turn it so far back that I would lock the steering wheel. Just....one....full....click.
The engine died and of course the braking suddenly got very stiff without the vacuum assist. Likewise the steering without power. But, without power the car slowed quickly and I pulled over onto the gravel shoulder and stopped about 50 metres short of the intersection. I don't recall having issues with lockup on gravel and now that I think of it the ABS probably wasn't active.
Once off the road and able to look down at the pedal I discovered it was indeed the floor mat that had slid over the base of the pedal and pinned it flat. There was a little metal hook that usually holds the mat in place but it had become bent out of shape allowing the mat to slide forward. Once it slide then the little rubber stubs underneath prevented me from moving it back easily.
I work in the aviation industry so am very interested in human factors issues involving safety and security. I recall reading some research that said it usually takes commercial crews about 12 full seconds to fully assimilate what the airplane is telling them, accept something is way wrong and react. In my case I was accutely aware of those precious seconds where I was thinking, "This isn't right. Can't be right. My foot is right off the pedal. Why am I not slowing down?" Questions like that can eat up a lot of time you don't have.
I never even considered banging it into neutral - a very obvious solution sitting here at the computer. In the moment with the motor screaming, smoke billowing up from the front and a quickly-approaching intersection in front I'm disappointed it wasn't my first thought, although I can accept why it might not have been.
Without training, backed up by countless hours of practice (a la aviation model) most drivers haven't a real hope of reacting adequately to any number of emergency highway scenarios.
