I hope this is stating the obvious, but if somehow your car keeps accelerating even after you take your foot off the gas pedal, like the recent crash in California that killed four, keep calm and PUT THE CAR IN NEUTRAL and coast until you can safely pull over.
The engine is what powers your vehicle. The transmission is what transmits that power to the wheels. Putting the car in neutral disconnects the engine from the wheels.
Why the off-duty police officer in California did not realize this in time, I do not know. But the solution, whether automatic transmission or standard (stick) is to PUT THE CAR IN NEUTRAL.
This is safer than turning the ignition off.
Do NOT try to put the car into PARK or REVERSE while going forward unless you are intending on buying a new transmission. Put the gear into NEUTRAL (N), which is next to DRIVE for this very reason.
Idle thought
“Put the car in neutral.”
Nice play on words. Pun intended?
Pun unintended. It took me a while to even make your connection.
I hoped everyone knew this, but these runaway accidents are frequent enough I thought a word here couldn’t hurt. They don’t teach this stuff in driver’s ed.
Putting the tranny in neutral will leave the engine still running unloaded and the gas pressed hard. You wouldn’t believe how much more than a tranny an engine costs.
A stuck gas pedal is a heap of trouble.
The time that it happened to me I was able to put my toe under the gas pedal and lift it. Sheer luck!
You are absolutely correct Ephraim, but the point is the four people in California died. Engines? Transmissions? Who cares? (And in their case, it was a loaner.)
So are you disagreeing with the Governement findings?:
(emphasis added by me)
“The report said Lexus ES 350 owners would need 150 pounds of force, five times the normal foot pressure, to halt their speeding car. They likely would have trouble finding the neutral gear in an emergency. And the three seconds needed to turn off the engine by continuously pushing the keyless power stop-start button, found on many Toyota models, “is not widely known by owners.”
I don’t know, push comes to shove I probably would find neutral, I don’t know. You’d think an off duty cop would have been able to get there. Weird.
Then again, I’m perplexed by the death that happened on I 25 this morning. I saw the car not long after it had crashed. It was mounted up backwards on the guard rail but hadn’t rolled over. It looked bad but didn’t look fatal. Three hours later on my return to ABQ, I saw the coroner rolling the body into the ambulance.
Strange stuff on the roads. Always good to be prepared.
Depending on the Nanny Level of your auto, some of this advice may not be possible me’thinks.
I like a manual, barely have ABS, my truck (diesel) will run without any electrics, and I ALWAYS have the clutch available as well as the off switch.
But am also willing to hit many hard objects instead of people, or preferably, almost hit many hard objects until one slows or can survive hitting the hard ones.
1. How can any driver not find neutral? They shift through it every time they drive their car unless they are staying in reverse. (Readers of this blog: Please locate neutral on your car next time you get in it.)
2. How can a driver not know how to turn the car off? That implies they’ve never turned it off. Ever.
3. I posted the above so people would think about it. It might happen to any of us — I have actually taken the floor mat out of my Z4 because it has an odd wrinkle in it. It seems to me that taking the car out of gear in an extreme emergency situation is the safest solution.
After reading the USA Today report it seems we are left with the idea that Toyota and Lexus drivers should just give up and crash?
Which isn’t to say the problem shouldn’t be taken seriously, though most uncontrolled acceleration emergencies are in fact driver error.
A funeral costs more than an engine or a transmission.