A good reason to make sure your floormats are..

[Doppelgänger]

Yeah,I saw that on the news the other day. Friggin' Darwin Award winner right there. :facepalm:

I'm not surprised the brakes weren't working...the pad compounds they use on cars like that are not worth a sh!t at 100mph...ride them for a few seconds at those speed and they'll be cooked. It's one thing to stop a car in an emergency situation from 80...but those brakes aren't meant to work against a engine running WOT at 100+mph. The car was a Lexus ES350...and those had decent power/acceleration so if the car was WOT, it wouldn't have taken much time to get to 120mph. ALSO- Remember that power brakes work off vacuum in the intake manifold. I'm sure many of you with boost/vac gauges will know, the as you increase throttle, vacuum is reduced. This reduction of vacuum i nthe brake cylinder assembly pretty much nulls the point of power brakes and makes pushing the pedal VERY difficult as anyone who has coasted a car will know after hitting the brakes a couple of times.

Also.. here is an interesting detail though. The car, being a new Lexus, uses a proximity key. Meaning, there is no actualy physical key to turn off. It's a card that the car detects it's withing xxft of the car and allows the car to be turned on with a push button starter once you open the door and get in.

With the revolutionary SmartAccess feature, you can lock and unlock your doors, open the trunk and start the ignition-all without having to take your keys out of your pocket or purse. As soon as the sensors detect the presence of your SmartAccess key, the door unlocks when you touch the handle.

So with that said, since it's a push button start/stop, it probably doesn't allow the car to be turned off unless the gear selector is in the "P" position..making it impossible to turn the car off while in Drive. Now, I don't know if it's possible or how easy it is to put the car in Park when motion. But still, they could have put the car in neutral to stop accelerating/scrub speed. Another possiblity is those stupid throttle-by-wire systems everyone uses these days. It might not have been a stuck floor mat at all, but rather a faulty computer/sensort that opened the throttle up. I've read a couple reports of Toyotas accelerating to high speeds unexpectedly..and not because the floor mat was stuck under the pedal.

http://world-news.newsvine.com/_news...crash#comments

Although the NHTSA says they didn't find anything, that many complaints dont' come out of nowhere..
http://wot.motortrend.com/6293208/re...sue/index.html

More people speaking about the problem can be found in the comments here..
http://www.topix.com/forum/autos/audi/TIUVQT6QDCKMIOCDK



Ahhh, the joys of over-complicated technology because people are too lazy to start a car by simply turning a key.

[speedminded]

Yeah,I saw that on the news the other day. Friggin' Darwin Award winner right there. :facepalm:

I'm not surprised the brakes weren't working...the pad compounds they use on cars like that are not worth a sh!t at 100mph...ride them for a few seconds at those speed and they'll be cooked. It's one thing to stop a car in an emergency situation from 80...but those brakes aren't meant to work against a engine running WOT at 100+mph. The car was a Lexus ES350...and those had decent power/acceleration so if the car was WOT, it wouldn't have taken much time to get to 120mph.

Also.. here is an interesting detail though. The car, being a new Lexus, uses a proximity key. Meaning, there is no actualy physical key to turn off. It's a card that the car detects it's withing xxft of the car and allows the car to be turned on with a push button starter once you open the door and get in.



So with that said, since it's a push button start/stop, it probably doesn't allow the car to be turned off unless the gear selector is in the "P" position..making it impossible to turn the car off while in Drive. Now, I don't know if it's possible or how easy it is to put the car in Park when motion. But still, they could have put the car in neutral to stop accelerating/scrub speed...

Ahhh, the joys of over-complicated technology because people are too lazy to start a car by simply turning a key.

ah good points, i dunno why i thought it was a corrolla...other than it being 4am after two long islands lol!

[Doppelgänger]

Yeah,I saw that on the news the other day. Friggin' Darwin Award winner right there. :facepalm:

I'm not surprised the brakes weren't working...the pad compounds they use on cars like that are not worth a sh!t at 100mph...ride them for a few seconds at those speed and they'll be cooked. It's one thing to stop a car in an emergency situation from 80...but those brakes aren't meant to work against a engine running WOT at 100+mph. The car was a Lexus ES350...and those had decent power/acceleration so if the car was WOT, it wouldn't have taken much time to get to 120mph. ALSO- Remember that power brakes work off vacuum in the intake manifold. I'm sure many of you with boost/vac gauges will know, the as you increase throttle, vacuum is reduced. This reduction of vacuum i nthe brake cylinder assembly pretty much nulls the point of power brakes and makes pushing the pedal VERY difficult as anyone who has coasted a car will know after hitting the brakes a couple of times.

Also.. here is an interesting detail though. The car, being a new Lexus, uses a proximity key. Meaning, there is no actualy physical key to turn off. It's a card that the car detects it's withing xxft of the car and allows the car to be turned on with a push button starter once you open the door and get in.



So with that said, since it's a push button start/stop, it probably doesn't allow the car to be turned off unless the gear selector is in the "P" position..making it impossible to turn the car off while in Drive. Now, I don't know if it's possible or how easy it is to put the car in Park when motion. But still, they could have put the car in neutral to stop accelerating/scrub speed. Another possiblity is those stupid throttle-by-wire systems everyone uses these days. It might not have been a stuck floor mat at all, but rather a faulty computer/sensort that opened the throttle up. I've read a couple reports of Toyotas accelerating to high speeds unexpectedly..and not because the floor mat was stuck under the pedal.

http://world-news.newsvine.com/_news...crash#comments

Although the NHTSA says they didn't find anything, that many complaints dont' come out of nowhere..
http://wot.motortrend.com/6293208/re...sue/index.html

More people speaking about the problem can be found in the comments here..
http://www.topix.com/forum/autos/audi/TIUVQT6QDCKMIOCDK



Ahhh, the joys of over-complicated technology because people are too lazy to start a car by simply turning a key.

Putting this on the top-ish of page two because no one reads the bottom of page one lol