Yes, that is definitely a possibility. Regardless of how much effort is put into ensuring the software fails safely, there are always bugs.
At some point I watched an interesting video about how the electrically boosted brakes on a Tesla work. It was a clever design that allowed the brakes to be activated completely mechanically/hydraulically by pedal pressure, completely electrically/hydraulically by the computer, or a mix of the two that is like typical power brakes.
I don’t know enough automotive engineering to judge whether it was truly an innovative design, but whoever had made the video was impressed.
That incident is frequently brought out as evidence of something. It is tragic, but I think like many accidents, due to multiple failures at many levels. I thought one of them was that nobody realized how long the start/stop button had to be held down to get the engine to turn off.
Good to test the things. Perhaps simulator training on emergency situations for drivers should become a thing.
This is bringing back a memory of my Toyota Truck (when that was the only name they got) in the 80s. I think there was an interlock so the steering could not be locked unless the transmission was in park or neutral. There was a button that had to be pressed to turn the key to “lock” and remove it. I think the button could not be pressed if the transmission was in a gear.
That obviously wouldn’t save you if you’d shifted to neutral, but it would change the emergency procedure from 1. neutral, 2. off to A. off, B. neutral. Or just avoid the muscle memory of pushing the button as the key was being turned.
I’m near Miami. It’s 72F, sunny, and dry outside. But yeah, there are scenarios you want to test on Nature’s skidpad in a large empty parking lot, and scenarios you don’t.
Another common variation was that from “on” the key could rotate only to “off”. From there you had to push inwards on the lock body against mild spring pressure to permit further rotation to the “lock” position where the key could then be removed.
As you say, muscle memory is often not your friend in these circumstances. Many people had internalized “rotate key while pushing in, then pull key out when the rotation hits the stops” as the shutdown sequence. Doing that on the freeway would be bad.
Well, damnit. I just realized that I don’t know the answer to this question either. I’m going to go try this, in a suitably safe location. We’ll have the answer (for modern BMWs at least) shortly.
Malcolm Gladwell addressed this in an episode of his Revisionist History podcast:
From the show description:
In the summer and fall of 2009, hundreds of Toyota owners came forward with an alarming allegation: Their cars were suddenly and uncontrollably accelerating. Toyota was forced to recall 10 million vehicles, pay a fine of more than $1 billion, and settle countless lawsuits. The consensus was that there was something badly wrong with the world’s most popular cars. Except that there wasn’t.
He and some car experts experimented with a Camry, flooring the gas and pushing on the brakes at the same time. The car stopped with no trouble at all. They estimated that when they applied the gas and brakes starting at 70 MPH, it added about 10 feet to the stopping distance. They were able to stop the car easily under all kinds of conditions, including having it fully loaded with people and equipment, and getting up to 100 MPH before flooring the gas and brakes. It stopped easily every time.
The podcast cites a similar test that Car and Driver magazine did with a Roush Stage 3 Mustang. This is a really powerful car. With the gas and brakes fully applied starting at 100 MPH, the car came to a stop in 900 feet. This is significantly farther than the typical stopping distance of 600 feet from 100 MPH, but the car did stop.
Yeah, in that consumer reports video it sure looks like the brakes are going to win, but then he just says that they won’t on some cars.
One thing drivers do while panicking is throw the transmission into Park. I remember hearing stories that all it does is make some clicking sounds, which I assume is the car not letting that input actually happen.
I think that the original “sudden acceleration” myth started with Audis in the 80s. People would swear that there was no way they had mixed up the pedals, and that they were pressing the brake as hard as they could. I recall that someone had an imprint of the gas pedal visible on the sole of their shoe.
It almost always happened at low speed, in parking lots or garages, so the brakes would have worked for sure, and quickly. It’s not surprising that the people it happened with won’t accept that they were responsible. It’s not an easy thing for our brains to make that shift.
I also recall some advice about what to do if your car suddenly accelerated or had a stuck throttle. The first step is to lift your right foot, even if it’s “on the brake” and very deliberately then apply the brakes.
Within the past year, NHTSA completed an investigation into Teslas reportedly having unintended acceleration. It could be particularly concerning in Teslas or other electric vehicles that have very powerful acceleration from a stop. And it probably did have some worse consequences because of the level of acceleration involved.
But it wasn’t some kind of programming issue. It was still pedal “misapplication.” Apparently, there was a higher rate for Teslas, but I think that happened in the Audi case too – there’s a demographic component, as it happens to older drivers more, and then a reporting bias happens. People who might have accepted that they confused the pedals hear that their car has an issue with sudden acceleration, so they report it as an issue with the car.
Here’s an article about it.
The “it” that’s happening, though, is completely different there. That’s just a form of popping the clutch. The car might lurch forward, but it will likely stall. If it doesn’t, it will still respond normally to a) taking your foot off the accelerator, and b) braking and using the clutch.
It’s only a degree of separation from the same problem you allude to, but from watching the Just Rolled In channel on YouTube, I understand one of the common causes of ‘stuck accelerator’ is that the user installed the rubber floor mat on top of the pedal.
What’s most remarkable about this and other similar incidents (such as some object like a wallet or phone deliberately placed in the soft boot of the gear shift, manifesting as ‘can’t change gears’) is the utter disconnect or failure to perceive cause and effect by the person who literally just caused the problem.
Somehow that reminds me of my Uncle, who had a 67 Buick Wildcat which he deliberately yanked the key out of the switch while it was on, to break the trap pin. He would be tooling down the highway, casually take the key out and use it to dig wax out of his ears.
A lot of ignition locks (and door locks) of that era were not very robust. By the time the car had 50K miles on it, your house key could start the car.
I don’t know that it’s euphemistic when said by the driver–usually they are pretty adamant. But probably yes for a lot of relatives telling the story.
The Toyota situation mentioned earlier did seem to involve, in a small fraction of cases, a mechanical cause. Something like 15% might have had a .floor mat trap the pedal or had a sticky pedal that was slow to come back up after being pressed. And, kind of oddly, Toyota did not want to blame drivers. They hoped to find a cause that they could fix.