U.S. regulators seek brake-throttle override mandate for all light vehicles

jim beam wrote in news:jmcjh1$nd$ snipped-for-privacy@speranza.aioe.org:

I've never seen an automatic that needed hillholding; usually,they have a lot of creep unless you keep your foot on the brake. a couple of miles per hour of "creep",I believe.

For the search-engine impaired:

"Toyota Recall Recap: Floormats, Sticky Pedals, AND User Error February 28, 2011 6:47 PM

Let?s recap.

After 18 months, recalls totaling 9 million Toyota, Lexus, and Pontiac models, and investigations by Toyota, Congress, NASA, and the U.S. Department of Transportation?s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) unit ? what have we learned?

(1) A few accelerator pedals did stick open, for one of two very different reasons.

First, some dealers or owners fitted unapproved floor mats that were too thick, which could prevent the accelerator from returning to its usual position.

In the case of the horrifying and highly publicized crash of a Lexus that sped along a California freeway before overturning, burning, and killing all four occupants, a trapped accelerator pedal is thought to have been compounded by the driver not knowing how to turn off the engine in a car with a push-button start.

Loose all-weather floor mat jams accelerator pedal. Photo: NHTSA

(The answer: Hold down the ?Start? button for a full 3 seconds. Hardly obvious without reading the owner?s manual, which few people do for their own car, let alone the dealership loaner that crashed.)

Solution: Toyota amputated the bottoms of low-hanging pedals in some models, leaving clearance for even the thickest floor mats to be used without interfering with reshaped, shorter pedals.

Second, some other accelerator pedal mechanisms stuck under specific temperature and humidity conditions, remaining at about 15 percent of full throttle because moisture prevented a smooth return action.

2004 Toyota Prius accelerator pedal after being shortened as part of sudden-acceleration recall

It got complicated: Only pedal assemblies made by CTS, one of two parts suppliers, suffered from the issue. So Toyota [NYSE:TM] first had to sort out which cars got parts from which supplier.

Solution: Starting in February 2010, Toyota installed a steel reinforcement bar on models using pedals supplied by CTS (a different set of cars from those on the amputation list). The bar kept the mechanism away from the position where it could stick.

(For more information, see our summary, Toyota And Lexus Recall: Everything You Need To Know, which gives details on the two separate recalls to address accelerator issues.)

(2) Investigators found no ?electronic gremlins? in Toyota?s vehicle or engine control software.

This was the big fear, raised repeatedly by plaintiff lawyers and on the floor of Congress. Math is hard, software is confusing, and computerized cars are scary. The lack of technical knowledge among elected officials didn?t help either.

Toyota retrofit fix for sticky-throttle recall

But investigators could not replicate a single so-called ?sudden acceleration? event once floor-mat and sticky-pedal causes were eliminated.

They pored through hundreds of thousands of lines of code seeking anomalies, unaddressed use cases, or any other problem that might make a car careen suddenly forward.

They even subjected Toyotas to high levels of electromagnetic interference, to see if systems weren?t properly shielded. Nothing changed.

The full NHTSA report wasn?t released by the DoT until this Tuesday, but as early as last August, the agency sent signals it had concluded that no electronic faults existed.

(3) Drivers who swear their car accelerated out of control are often wrong.

You put your foot on the brake, but instead of slowing, your car accelerates. The harder you brake, the faster it speeds up. Must be ?sudden acceleration,? right?

Well, no.

2009 Toyota Prius

It is, says psychology professor Richard Schmidt at the University of California, Los Angeles, ?noisy neuromuscular processes? that occasionally prevent a limb from doing what the brain tells it to. Translation: Drivers sometimes press the gas pedal when they mean to brake.

The driver thinks his or her foot is on the brake. But it?s not; it deviated slightly from the intended path, and landed on the loud pedal instead.

As soon as the car accelerates, the panicky driver presses even harder on the ?brake,? exacerbating the crisis.

Age may play a factor too, with data showing that the bulk of Toyota ?sudden acceleration? deaths involving drivers aged 60 to 80.

In two highly publicized cases of so-called sudden acceleration, including one very suspicious one, investigators found either ?strong indications that the driver?s account of the event is inconsistent with the findings of the analysis? (for which, read, ?he lied?) or ?no application of the brakes, [with] the throttle ? fully open.?

But there are no mysterious electronic gremlins. And drivers do make mistakes.

Honest."--

However, there are some 4 cylinder automatic transmissions with rollback. Hill holding would be just before the moment of moving forward: 1) left foot on brake pedal, 2) right foot on gas pedal, 3) apply a small amount of gas pedal then slowly release the brake. Properly done means no rollback and no suddenly moving forward too fast.

[snip...]

The claim was yours that you made, so you were expected to make the cite, not my responsibility to search for it.

But since you provided a cite:

[snip... full article text quoted removed from the reply]

Honest."--

Not one mention of going to the open road, causing a pedal stick situtation in the full throttle position, then trying to outbrake the still accelerating vehicle. If they didn't do that, the investigation to this day is still quite incomplete.

I just checked. My current 2005 Ford 500 auto has a brake pedal no bigger than than the one on my manual tranny PU. No way in hell could I use both feet on it. Thinking back I have to go way back to recall a car that had one of those over width brakee pedals.

I'll have to check the next time I'm out and about but I don't recall haveing to do anything to hill hold in the last severl auto trannies. Pull up to stop and step on gas to get toing again. Of coruse it is such an ingrained, automatic operation It could be that I do have to dosoemtething other than "take foot off brake and step on gas".

Harry K

In addition to term limits there should be a ban on more than one "career" in Washington. Get your terms completed as a congressman, that's it, no other government job ever in Washington.

Harry K

that was in the old days - i like my 89 civic automatic because of it. but my 2000 civic didn't have it to improve idle [city] fuel economy. it made close maneuvering a pain, and would sometimes necessitate throttle and left foot braking to allow the vehicle to creep forward SLOWLY, which just throttle alone wouldn't let.

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Why?!

------------------------ (Dan Rouse)

I cutnpasted to return this to normal posting order, i.e., I say something you add yours to the bottom, not the top. Did my mpost somehow show up in your reader 'top posted?"

Anyhow..

IIRC it was the passenger that made the call but that is immaterial. Driver could have done it as a coverup to his motives...insurance? That went on way too long for a supposed well rained driver and ended in a direct head on into a barrier. It stank to high heaven for an "accident".

Harry K

Harry K

(Replying top post again, sorry...)

Something about your posts and a couple of other posts do not cause my newsreader to generate the usual '>' characters when I reply to the post. Something about Quoted Printable, I think. Could also be a bug in Windows Mail. However, for the few amount posts that do have this issue, it does not justify changing newsreaders.

[snip...]

You don't even know who made the statement you were replying to. No wonder why more complicated facts are so difficult to grasp.

Honest."--

>

The inadequate words of mere mortals couldn't begin to capably express the vast depths of your profound idiocy.

Okay, understandable. Musst be something new to the old google version which is what I am using. Never caused a problem before.

Harry K

Hill-holding with the clutch as described earlier will afford you the enjoyable experience of premature clutch replacement. None of the speculation in this thread truly addresses why the guy in California didn't just shift into neutral. He was a state trooper; he should have known better. Also, that Lexus didn't go from 50 to whatever in the blink of an eye. He had to have had several seconds to consider his options and act on them.

>

Okay, so misquoting happens. Sorry. Done.

Honest."--

>>

Actually, it's insight. If the identical scenario was not tested then theoreticals are invalid. QED.

I agree, if your car has a handbrake. Unfortunately many have a foot operated parking brake, and even worse, some newer ones are "kick to release" instead of having a lever to pull, so you can't modulate the e-brake, it's either on or off.

nate

You know what's odd, my company car *both* requires hillholding and also has a lot of creep/runaway/whatever you call it. I really hate recent (and by "recent" I mean "within the last decade" - if not more) GM transmissions.

Now the Toyota/Aisin-Warner (AW4) trans in my Jeep behaves about like I would expect an auto trans to do; my only complaint with it is that doesn't have discrete lever positions for "1" and "2".

nate

Last time I checked, all automatic transmission had the capability of being shifted into neutral.

Honest."--

>

One of the news organizations did a TV story where they did essentially what you are asking about. They had no problem stopping the car but it was, of course, taking more pressure on the brake pedal.