Sudden Acceleration Verdict Is in - its not a electronic issue

Well, I'll say one thing, this thread is sure keeping EVPV occupied! He's arguing for arguments sake, some people are good at it because you can always have a counterpoint to anything. Maybe he was debate champion in school - who knows. I mean just look at all that's been accomplished here! Uhhhh, I'm still looking..... oh I give up - can't find anything!

 

I'm just amazed that anyone thinks adding another pedal to the car will help. How can you possibly argue that making the car more complex and difficult to drive will prevent drivers from screwing up more than they already screw up? If they screw up using one foot, surely they would screw up more if they had to use both feet.

My suggestion is simple. Just add a footwell video camera to the car if the driver complains of unintended acceleration. In a relatively short period of time the cameras will catch cases of UA or Driver Error. If the video shows their foot on the gas, then the case is closed, the driver screwed up. If the video shows their foot on the brake, then the car was at fault and there is a serious safety issue that needs to be addressed. If the first 100 cases are driver error, fine with me. If it finds 5 percent of cases where the car is at fault, then what should be done? Nothing?

 

Hard data from the real world can be just amazing.

And some drivers will continue to find excuses to reject even that, just as some are now rejecting the event data recorders.

 

Airplanes are far more complex to operate than automobiles, yet pilots have fewer accidents than drivers. The answer, of course, is obvious: the requirements to be a pilot are far greater than those to drive a car.

Perhaps this is the same reason that making a car more complex and difficult to drive might reduce UA. The very fact that it is more complex and difficult to drive limits the type of people that will drive. If we limit people to F1 racing cars, there will probably be even fewer problems. It's not practical, of course, since people need to drive.

We see the same phenomenon with power boats and sailboats. Despite much higher complexity, sailboats have far fewer accidents. Anyone can jump into a power boat and speed off; you need some idea of what you are doing to sail.

The real issue is that drivers need to be more competent. We can keep making cars safer, but at some point we need to raise the bar on who is allowed to drive.

Tom

 

If the footwell video camera finds 5 percent of cases where the car is at fault, then what should be done? Nothing?

 

What will a footwell camera find that an event data recorder will not?

Beside privacy violations, that is.

 

Where's the hard data? In America 95% of the cars sold have automatic transmissions.

How do you refute a video that shows your foot on the gas during a crash?

 

Given how rare these SUA occurrences are, that's not going to work. Has your friend sudden accelerated again since he crashed? If not, the camera isn't going to catch anything. It'd have to be mandatorily installed and analyzed after the fact, but good luck getting that to happen with privacy advocates.

 

If the EDR says the foot was on the gas and the video shows the foot on the brake, then what?

It would be a voluntary program, no privacy problems. Would you put one in your car if you honestly felt you experienced UA and the program was free?

 

And if it never happens again (such as in your friend's case), what does it prove? Nothing.

 

My friends Prius had complete electronics shutdown on the freeway after he got it back from being repaired. That would have been caught on video.

I think you have a decent chance of getting people who've experienced UA to voluntarily allow a free video camera to be installed in their car.

There is zero chance the auto industry is going to revert to manual transmissions.

 

Now, sure. Previous century, when you were filtering out the findings on this stuff, no at all.

How do you refute an EDR that shows your foot on the gas during a crash?

 

We're searching for a rare event. I don't care if 10,000 videos show nothing, doesn't bother me one bit. But I do care if 5 out of 10,000 show electronic malfunctions.

 

I would refute it with a video that shows my foot on the brake. Which would win in a court of law? You know the answer, but will give an evasive answer.

 

What is stopping them from voluntarily installing one now?

 

Footwell camera would have caught the electronics shutdown?

 

Who's presented it as a solution other than me? If a system existed that bolted into my car and showed RPM, etc I would put one in my car. Why wouldn't you?

 

Yep. Foot on the gas, car dramatically slowing down. A lithium battery keeps the camera recording in such situations.

 

Afraid to answer?

If the footwell video camera finds 5 percent of cases where the car is at fault, then what should be done? Nothing?

 

But what's the relevance of the footwell camera in the case of electronics shutdown? It's not like the driver can do anything with his foot to cause it, unlike pedal misapplication to cause SUA.

Then that means 95% of cases are attributed to pedal confusion. Such a low number like 5% must be due to random outside interference, most likely not attributable to an actual internal design flaw within the electronic system.