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ilovemycoffee
MS 85D HW1 Late 2015
Do car manufacturers need to separate the brakes and accelerator further apart in order to prevent accidents like this?
I assume what you are referring to here is hill hold coming on when you press the brake to start the car. That forces you to tap the brake or accelerator to get the car moving. You can avoid this by not pressing so hard on the brake when starting the car. I had to learn to do this when hill hold was first introduced.
⚡️ELECTROMAN⚡️
Village Idiot
Life With Tesla Model S: UPDATE On Pedal Placement Problem
In this article from Green Car Reports the author says that the placement of the pedals in the Model S might make it more prone to having unintended, driver induced, acceleration events. Are the pedals positioned closer together than they are in most cars? Has anyone else on here had a similar experience to what the author describes in this article?
In this article from Green Car Reports the author says that the placement of the pedals in the Model S might make it more prone to having unintended, driver induced, acceleration events. Are the pedals positioned closer together than they are in most cars? Has anyone else on here had a similar experience to what the author describes in this article?
Joer293
MODEL X P100DL
Of all car manufacturers, Tesla may be able to reduce some of the events by software. They have already built in double pedal lockout, and max slip start speed. There is radar and camera in all new vehicles. If the camera and radar show conditions are not clear, display warning on the screen, and reduce max throttle availability, until user acknowledges an over ride. Similar to the over ride invented for torque loading, launch mode. Emergency braking should be able to prevent this already.
Oh and review the pedal design. With so many various shoe sizes around the world, there is bound to be something that can be done.
Oh and review the pedal design. With so many various shoe sizes around the world, there is bound to be something that can be done.
Gizmotoy
Active Member
I have a 2013, but there were many posts both excited about and also complaining about the change to pedal placement that occurred in 2014 sometime (maybe around the AP/D into?). I don't think any of the statements made in that article apply to vehicles built within the past year or two.
But yes, I've on occasion pushed both pedals. It dings, I realize what I did and stop. It's always when my leg gets tired/lazy and doesn't want to move my foot over as far as it should.
Then again, I've always driven manual sports-type cars where there's significant benefit for having the brake/accelerator right on top of each other.
cmc5dc
Member
I had a near experience, for some reason I hit the stalk upward when I was turning right and the car accelerated, luckily my quick response was to hit the brake.
⚡️ELECTROMAN⚡️
Village Idiot
I didn't notice how old the article was. I've never heard before that Tesla changed their pedal placement. What year was this car that crashed into the gym?
byan1232
Member
It's actually funny because the owner probably didn't know the whole thing was recorded on tape. It's so obvious that she pressed the accelerator instead of brakes because the car accelerated right as you'd hit the brakes.
I would judge drivers not by their gender, but by how many minutes are on their cellphones, and whether they get anxiety attacks if it breaks that require hospitalization. Most the REALLY bad drivers I see are men in BMWs. They want to drive fast, they TRY to drive fast, but they have no idea how, and end up just looking like boobs, zigzagging constantly yet getting nowhere.
Meh. My wife has 1 ticket (bad trap, not guilty). and one accident (hit hard while parked in a parking lot and outside the car). She has an NHRA Super Gas Competition License, is an SCCA member, and has professional road racing training. Her daily driver is a 638HP manual transmission 200+ mph supercar. She can normally post better times for stick shift cars than the magazine boys can. It's all about seat time. She's had thousands of passes in manual transmission cars. She has bested my Bone Stock Production family record by 0.001 seconds and I have the seat time advantage.
Exactly what percentage of men can say their record and training is that good?
EDIT - That was a little harsh, but you need to understand that today, 2016. women are still treated like crap at many racetracks. It's something that sticks in my craw.
We were in Tennessee? or Florida? and the director of the race org says, "let's get a shot of all the Super Stock racers" and my wife came up with me. "No missy, no wives, just racers". Putz. She IS one of the racers. I told him that she was a racer and a member of the org, and after that, things deteriorated. They screwed with our entries all season, and one time even tied a dead animal to the back right before the call to lanes.
If your wife or daughter or girlfriend doesn't drive well, well that's your choice. Don't assume driving requires great strength or hair on your chest. It does not.
Meh. My wife has 1 ticket (bad trap, not guilty). and one accident (hit hard while parked in a parking lot and outside the car). She has an NHRA Super Gas Competition License, is an SCCA member, and has professional road racing training. Her daily driver is a 638HP manual transmission 200+ mph supercar. She can normally post better times for stick shift cars than the magazine boys can. It's all about seat time. She's had thousands of passes in manual transmission cars. She has bested my Bone Stock Production family record by 0.001 seconds and I have the seat time advantage.
Exactly what percentage of men can say their record and training is that good?
EDIT - That was a little harsh, but you need to understand that today, 2016. women are still treated like crap at many racetracks. It's something that sticks in my craw.
We were in Tennessee? or Florida? and the director of the race org says, "let's get a shot of all the Super Stock racers" and my wife came up with me. "No missy, no wives, just racers". Putz. She IS one of the racers. I told him that she was a racer and a member of the org, and after that, things deteriorated. They screwed with our entries all season, and one time even tied a dead animal to the back right before the call to lanes.
If your wife or daughter or girlfriend doesn't drive well, well that's your choice. Don't assume driving requires great strength or hair on your chest. It does not.
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In addition to comparing the number of accidents for various demographic groups, it may also be interesting to compare the costs of these accidents.
Btw, I have witnessed on two occasions how my wife after parallel parking was approached by a helpful person who asked if she could not get her car out...
Gizmotoy
Active Member
I think smashing the wrong pedal is equal-opportunity. It happens all the time, and I don't think it has anything to do with gender.
Years ago my wife's grandfather put their Yukon through their newly-renovated bathroom. Same sudden acceleration excuse. Seems to me there's some kind of biological inclination here. If you've ever talked to someone this has happened to, they are absolutely certain, without a shadow of a doubt, that the car accelerated itself. I knew a kid in high school who had a beater, no floor mats, no cruise control, direct cable linkage to throttle body... as far as I can tell, absolutely no way for the car to accelerate on its own. And yet, same story.
That's pretty depressing. Similar experience, though. When my wife brings the Evo to the track she's always asked if that's her boyfriend's car. We just do track days, but I suspect it only gets worse as you get to competition level. In daily conversations, it's always somehow extremely shocking that she can drive a manual. No one's ever shocked I can drive a manual.
Right. In addition to the various anecdotes, I want to point out that the German ADAC (like the US AAA, I guess) offers a range of courses where members can improve their skills.
They have a basic course, one for young drivers and one for female drivers (in addition to some more specialized ones).
Except for some legal special information for the young drivers, the three courses cover pretty much the same material, with the basic one being open for all members (and being taken by all kinds of members).
So ADAC must be offering the one for female drivers only, because there is a demand among women to improve their driving skills in the absence of men. I find that notable.
rog
Member
brucet999
Active Member
Just note how Tesla reacted with a general recall to one non-injury instance of a loose bolt on seatbelt anchor.
Joe F
Disruption is hard.
I had a '59 Rambler Classic as a teen. Was doing a slow U-turn on a cobble stone street in Philly
after dropping of someone at the curb when WHAM! Car floored itself as I started the turn!
Brakes did nothing. Reached down and put car in neutral (push button tranny) to kill
what would have been unintended doughnuts, luckily before reaching the other side
of the street. It can, and in my case, does happen.
Cause? Broken motor mount, replaced the next day. Allowed the engine block
to rise on the torque, pulling on the carb linkage till it was wide open.
Close scrutiny of the video shows the car continues to accelerate right through hitting the wall - classic positive feedback loop. The driver probably lightly touched the accelerator (thinking it was the brake), but when the car continued further she instinctively pressed harder, trying to brake, but simply caused further acceleration, causing her to press harder, etc etc. So she was likely flooring it when she hit the wall.
int32_t
Tesla Spotter
I'd say that was a pretty firm brake press to elicit that type of acceleration response in the first place.
There is likely nothing wrong with the pedal position in any car. We humans run the most advanced selfpilot software on the most advanced supercomputer ever designed in the most flexible robot-body that can run practically any piece of equipment and do a wide variety of tasks. But, there's the odd time (it happens even in the most experienced among us) where it seems like a wire gets crossed and the bizarre happens, often in the most mundane of activities (like ... braking). Fallible is a good word to describe this phenomenon.
There is likely nothing wrong with the pedal position in any car. We humans run the most advanced selfpilot software on the most advanced supercomputer ever designed in the most flexible robot-body that can run practically any piece of equipment and do a wide variety of tasks. But, there's the odd time (it happens even in the most experienced among us) where it seems like a wire gets crossed and the bizarre happens, often in the most mundane of activities (like ... braking). Fallible is a good word to describe this phenomenon.
