Safe Speed Forums

Has anyone else seen the news reports of the Australian chap that had his car stick in cruise?

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/driver ... 5810668864

He was heard to say during the emergency call that the key would not turn and he could not put it into neutral.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

bizarre..... i guess we'll never actually know whether he actually did the range of obvious things to override/disable it.. or tried to but failed to do them due to panic, but my money is on driver error.

(interesting mention in one of the comments along the lines of 'maybe if he was actually taught how to drive, not just how to point it where you want to go' )

It does seem odd given the number of simultaneous failures needed,

Brake switch - a known fault on this model of Ford
CC control switches, on/off and speed change
Ignition key jammed in on
Gear stick stuck in drive - I am assuming an auto, if not then clutch actuator failure too.

Balanced against a brake switch failure and a panicking driver or just simply an attention seeking drama queen.

Be interesting to see what the follow up on this is, presumably even after stopping the key was still stuck and stick was locked in drive.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

Yeah and perhaps he calls his car "Christine"...
To say I'm "sceptical" is putting it pretty mildly, to say the very least!

No: His car was called "Priscilla"

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

Sounds suspiciously like this Muppet

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The Box said "Windows XP or better" ... So I installed Ubuntu

Or a simple fault that managed to engage the interlock, normally designed to stop you from moving from Park to Drive without first pressing the brakes. It may have been faulty for a long time and he never knew and just applied the brake when wanting to switch from Drive to Neutral, thinking it was meant to be like that.

That just leaves the key, which is probably down to "driver error". Some designs can be quite fiddly to get to turn at all, I know that if I use the original key for my Volvo it's very hard to turn because the key is so badly worn, I wouldn't fancy trying to do that and control the car at 50mph.

....although clearly any such interlock would have been working when he set off...

Yes, my thought is what if it were working too well, requiring the brake to be pressed for any gear change at all. If you're the kind of driver who never uses the 3,2 or 1 positions, just P, R, N and D. It wouldn't actually seem too odd, or get in the way too much to have to press the brake pedal for every movement of the lever. You'd just end up assuming that's how it's meant to me since there is no standardisation on which gear changes actually need the brake pedal pressed. You could drive for years never knowing you have a fault.

Then all you'd need is for the brake switch to go while you're driving. A common fault on this car apparently, and your gear lever is jammed as well as cruise stuck on.

I think you're being very charitable!

On that basis it is a wonder that there is not a proper 'recall' or an extra check sent out to MOT garages etc., to ensure the various components are still as safe as possible.
What she says doen't make sense .... if it is irrelevant how can it also be

My initial thought was why not turn off the car, but that seems to have been a genuine problem unless in his panic it 'became' impossible than was actually impossible. Fear is a great way to stop things from happening as people can behave abnormally and that prevents normal 'relaxed' reactions. Then there is always the hand brake. I think that would have been my choice just prior to choosing a place to 'crash' into a 'soft' target, like a small pond or sand, but thinking clearly is really hard at these times for many people.
Since the handbrake and the foot brake stopped the car then it might seem that it was 'finger'' trouble during panic perhaps. Good to see that the Police seemed to do all they could - although placing him on hold was a very bad idea!

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

I don't know what the Explorer cruise control problem actually WAS down to, but it makes perfect sense to me that it could have made no difference to this problem whether or not he'd had the recall done.

A cruise control system will have a variety of sensors and actuators (and probably some software too) in order for it to work. If the recall was (say) for a faulty brake pedal switch but this problem was caused by (say) a faulty throttle actuator, either fault could have caused a cruise control malfunction, but having had the recall for one component wouldn't necessarily prevent a different componet from causing it to malfunction.

With regard to the handbrake, I don't think it would have made any appreciable difference. The Explorer is a big SUV. I am assuming his might well have been an automatic too. (Otherwise putting the clutch down would have been a very easy way to solve the proplem)! If you pull the handbrake on, the vehicle will just open its throttle a bit more to get back up to the speed at which the cruise control was set to. If the engine didn't have enough "grunt" to overcome the handbrake drag, the gearbox would have automatically shifted to a lower gear until it did (as far as the car was concerned, it would have just encountered a hill). I can't think of many cars where the engine can't overcome the handbrake WITH EASE once it's driving along at such a speed. After a minute or so, the handbrake pads would have been faded to death anyway.

HOWEVER, that still leaves a number of other unanswered issues.

The first one (which everyone has mentioned) is why the hell didn't he turn the engine off. Your explanation of panic is the only one that makes sense to me. Next, why didn't he jab the throttle? On mnay crusie-control-equipped cars, touching ANY of the pedals disengages it. He's have been jolly unlucky for BOTH to fail simultaneously!

The next question is why he didn't take it out of gear?

Finally, although one wouldn't expect a handbrake to be able to slow a car down, the footbrake certainly should have done! Apparently, it too failed in it's duty (well, until he was about to crash anyway and then it seemed to work) !

Fishier than a barrel full of fish with some fishy sauce added, if you ask me!

On the two cars I have driven with it when you take your foot off the accelerator the car just drops back to the set speed. Of course they both also had a button to turn CC off and controls to vary the set speed.

Even the panic explanation appears a little unlikely, the guy managed to call both Ford and the police to get help.

Liked the Black Adderesque addition

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

Never really liked CRUISE - got a better idea - thing called right foot ,coupled with BRAIN and looking at SPEEDO .Worked sucessfuly for me for many years .Got it down to a fine art - and got a clean licence to prove it .Taught it to daughter , she's also got clean licence - her partner uses same principle -different limbs on bikes - so far NO points . So education & control seems to come up trumps over automation .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Just a couple of years ago I would have agreed with you botach, maybe I am getting older but I find holding my right foot in near enough the same position for over an hour makes my calf ache and even start to cramp sometimes. Since we have had cars with CC I find it useful on motorway runs, it is not like you lose control , the set speed can be trimmed up and down as needed, it can even make you push your awareness further out. My preferred method is to set a cruise speed then control by slowing either by suspending the speed control or if necessary braking before accelerating manually back up to cruise and hitting the resume switch; to temporarily speed up I just use the accelerator and when finished blend back down to cruise speed and take my foot back off the pedal to allow the CC to take over again. You can still have full control, it just removes the need to use muscles to oppose a spring in order to have it.

Think of it this way, do you feel the need to have a clutch control that requires you to keep the pedal pushed down to maintain drive? One of the early Fords iirc did this, for first gear at least.

As much as I like a light, nimble car without PAS, ABS, ESP or servo'd brakes that takes complete concentration of mind and body to drive well when it comes to driving a few hundred miles on motorways I like a car that takes some of the strain so I can physically relax and let my brain do the work.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

Sorry ,mate - I'm of the old school - my right foot sets the speed . (unless it's needed to hit the brake ) -then with the other feet siting on the floor - I can sit relaxed in control of the car .Don't matter the time - you can always vary the speed to compensate for numpties on the raod .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

While my instincts are to go with your summary, apparently this is not as far-fetched as it first sounds...

There's an issue regarding the CC wiring being "live" all the time with the possibility it can override the ignition on this type of car.

Brakes can fade quickly if not used properly- I've had a throttle jam open (I think because of the mat) on a 2.8TD and trust me you really gotta push the brakes for all you're worth. Given this guy had a big ol V8 it's plausible that he just cooked the brakes through not using them most effectively.

Finally some auto transmissions apparently won't disengage under load, and most won't let you release the ignition key untill in park.

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Fear is a weapon of mass distraction

But his brakes managed to "uncook" themselves when he had no alternative but to stop!

I'm guessing, and this could be utterly butterly wrong, that he first gently applied the brakes (cooking them) and the CC held at cruise speed, then he completely lifted off the brakes (they would cool down fairly quickly at highway speeds), then he properly stomped on the brake during his last attempt. Any skidding (if he managed it, the handbrake would have helped) will help keep the heat off the brakes. It's plausible, even if not likely.

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

OK, that's fair, I'm possibly letting my cynicism get the better of me! I don't know enough about the Explorer to pontificate with any authority. If it has a transmission handbrake or one with separate pads / shoes to the footbrake, it would help a bit. If not, it would just act on the (already faded) friction surfaces. Also, as he applies the footbrake, (I'm guessing it's a petrol engine) the car will slow down, the throttle will open further to try and maintain speed, and the vacuum available to the brake servo will drop. Lifting off the brakes should then reverse that process, so I guess the best thing would be to not touch the brakes and try to get the car into over-run (perhaps by accelerating and then lifting off) and then absolutely stand on them in a single application - ideally on an uphill bit!