I don’t know about blowero but I’ve been taking painkillers lately. 
Could be any numer of explanations for that. Maybe he thought he was going to get busted for speeding, so he made up a story. There was another case of a woman who bought a crappy car and wanted to get out of her lease, so she pretended that the car was out of control, apparently thinking that the company would refund her money. It was written up in the press as an amazing tale of a quick-thinking 9/11 dispatcher saving the woman’s life. Only later did holes start popping up in the woman’s story. Turned out that not only was there nothing wrong with the car, but she had tried the same stunt on another occasion, driving the car around in circles, pretending that she couldn’t stop it. Witnesses said they observed the brake lights go on several times, and the car slowing normally each time the brakes were applied, even though the woman claimed she was unable to slow the car. It soon became obvious that the woman was lying, and she dropped her complaint against the manufacturer. Sadly, people’s stupidity no longer surprises me.
Another explanation is that the throttle did get stuck, and the guy simply panicked and was unable to think clearly enough to stop the car. But for the throttle to stick AND all the redundant cruise control shutoff mechanisms to fail AND the brakes to fail AND the transmission to fail, all simultaneously, is beyond unlikely.
Sure. I’m just not convinced that “Guy being devious” is the only explanation. I think “Guy being conehead” or “Guy having panic attack” or “Guy unfamiliar with operation of car” are equally possible.
Thats all.
Same here. Thanks, alice, for such a concise statement.
Might be anything. But the guy should not be driving.
Get a ticket. Perhaps loose your licenses for speeding, Willful endangerment of others. Reckless driving. I could go on.
I don’t think being devious is a crime. We will see on the next election in the US.
The coneheads claimed to be from France (SNL reference). Need a ruling on this one.
If he is having a panic attack while driving a car than he may, or should have his license revoked until he gets that under control.
Next.
. Not even an argument here. My dog is unfamiliar with the operation of a car. As a responsible person, I don’t let my dog drive.
Quite possibly. I found a report that he recently got his license back after it had been suspended for four years due to a DUI.
29 years old.
120 miles.
125 miles an hour.
He new how to drive.
And. WOW. He new how to stop before the toll booth. Amazing stuff.
I don’t know about your dog, but this one looks familiar with driving: http://www.netlabs.net/hp/lew/rudy/images/ry_vette013_900.jpg
And here’s his Driver’s License: http://www.netlabs.net/hp/lew/rudy/images/rudylicense.jpg
Right - which all add up to driver error, which is far and above the most likely explanation here.
Oh, and I notice our friend Lute is now subtly trying to pretend he was agreeing that it was driver error all along. I don’t blame him for jumping off his sinking ship. 
According to this article
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the driver wasn’t picked up on radar, the only reason the cops got involved was because he called on his cell phone.
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as a result of his conversation with the cops, the highway was cleared, the tollbooth barriers were opened, emergency people were on standby etc.
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He says the car finally stopped when he was able to cut the engine by removing the keycard and holding the stop button as instructed by police.
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He stopped 20km before reaching the tollbooth (not in reaction to upcoming tollbooth).
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Renault say they’re starting a judicial procedure to determine what really happened, but take pains to point out that they’re not suing the driver (whatever all that means - any French lawyers on board ?)
My personal input - I drove one of these Renault automatics for a week a while back, and sometimes felt more like a passenger than a driver - you could always feel that your pedal preesure was being heavily mediated, and the the car had the last word ! The headlights went on automatically when ambient light was low (kind of a pain in a parking garage). The cardkey thing was difficult to use, always seemed like you had to try several times to get it right. OTOH, I’m kind of a luddite, and only really happy with a cantankerous stick-shift with no power steering.
This story was pretty big over here on the day when it happened, and got pretty serious TV play, but there was always a healthy flavor of skepticism in the coverage…
If you had been paying attention to what I was saying instead of finding more points to argue about, you would have noticed that I’ve been agreeing since at least post #35.
You really shouldn’t have bothered. blowero will just dismiss this as more bad reporting. 
Heck! :smack: I forgot that the car is most probably equipped with Drive-by-wire throttle.
In drive-by-wire systems, there is no throttle cable. The throttle butterfly is opened and closed by a small electric motor that is controlled by the car’s ECU and of course by the input from the gas pedal.
In passenger cars, this system is used mainly for lowering the emissions. People usually complain that throttle response is delayed slightly. In sports/racing applications, it is used for making gear changes smoother, by synchronising the engine’s RPM with gearbox RPM.
Now, there could something go terribly wrong with the Drive By Wire system and leave the throttle wide open, but this still doesn’t explain why the driver didn’t put the car into neutral or just use the brakes.
If this also applies to the Vel Satis, it could be the reason why the driver didn’t put the car into neutral.
There’s something else I thought of but hadn’t mentioned: I wonder if Monsieur Dequiedt had an aftermarket ECU installed.
Suuuure you have… :dubious:
Yeah, you’re right - that’s why I posted a tedious list of many different articles, pointed out their contradictions, said “Can you see why I’m having trouble believing anyone here?”, and then demanded a response.
Oh wait, that was YOU.
Doncha love it, though?
Lute: “The problem here is that we only know what’s been reported but with so many articles on the subject giving different details, there’s no way to know exactly went on…Can you see why I’m having trouble believing anyone here?”
Blowero: [ignores Lute’s immaterial point]
Lute: “I meant to ask if you’d care to comment on the rest of the post which sent us off on this tangent.”
Blowero: “Not really. What kind of comment were you looking for? That bad reporters exist?”
(Here’s where it gets good)
Lute: “Three out of five say nothing about him stomping on the brakes, just the two that quoted from La Parisien. You’d rather dismiss them as bad reporting instead of taking them into consideration.”
(Now we’ve gone from “there’s not way to know exactly what went on”, to sputtering about how we must believe the articles. 
)
Lute: “You really shouldn’t have bothered. blowero will just dismiss this as more bad reporting.”
And now the transformation is complete. You’ve gone from being adamant that we can know nothing from reading the articles, to complaining that I’ve “dismissed” them.
It’s like arguing with the Rain Man.
What do you call this then?
How is that different from “I’m just not convinced that ‘Guy being devious’ is the only explanation. I think ‘Guy being conehead’ or ‘Guy having panic attack’ or ‘Guy unfamiliar with operation of car’ are equally possible.”?
Earth to blowero, the only thing I’ve gone to is how we must not take the AP and La Parisien at face value because of all those articles muddling the issue.
Whoosh!
No. The Vel Satis has a plain old boring auto tranny. The racing application I was talking about is for manual sequential gearboxes. The drive-by-wire system matches engine and gearbox RPM so you do not need to depress the clutch for shifting up.
When downshifting, you need to depress the clutch. Now, the drive-by-wire will automatically blip the throttle, so there’s no need to heel-and-toe into the curve.
Okay, Dog, thanks for the clarification.