Button on left side of shift knob.
Posted on 12/16/2009 8:06:23 AM PST by myknowledge
The frantic triple-0 call from a Melbourne motorist whose cruise control jammed has been released.
Chase Weir can be heard screaming "Oh my God, Oh my God, I'm gonna die!" as he veered onto the wrong side of the road near the end of his hair-raising 30-minute ordeal through Melbourne's east.
Earlier, he can be heard becoming panicked as he attempts to slow the 2002 Ford Explorer.
The cruise control originally became stuck on 100km/h on the Eastern Freeway in Kew, with Mr Weir's attempts to brake having little effect.
"It slows down to about 80 and then the car just accelerates ... the brake pedal gets really hard to push," the 22-year-old says to the emergency operator.
The operator then asks him to turn off the engine.
"No, the key won't actually move," Mr Weir replies.
"I tried ringing Ford and they said the key wouldn't move."
He tried to switch the 4WD into neutral but he is heard saying on the tape "the button won't push in."
Triple-0 operator Sgt Marnie Goldsmith continually tries to keep the driver calm.
"Listen — we're on the freeway, there's no need to panic, Chase," Sgt Goldsmith says.
"I'm doing my best," Mr Weir replies.
A police escort had been attempting to clear a path for the out-of-control car as it hurtled down the Eastlink roadway.
But in the southeast suburb of Frankston banked-up cars near Monash University forced Weir into oncoming traffic.
"I just went onto the wrong side of the road!" he yells.
"I need you with all your strength to go on the brake, as well as the handbrake," Sgt Goldsmith orders as Mr Weir screams in the background.
A police officer on the scene can then be heard saying that he has finally stopped, half an hour and over 40km from where he first encountered difficulties.
Mr Weir has since been treated for shock and was today reunited with Sgt Goldsmith, who has been praised for her handling of the bizarre and frightening situation.
I read the article. I’d bet money there was nothing hindering him other than panic.
Really? I tried drive to neutral in my mini-van and it would not move. It would down shift to drive and 2 but not into neutral.
-puzzled-
Button on left side of shift knob.
That is like mine, but you don't need to push the button to go to "N"...only to come out of park...
There may be some models that require brake use to get into neutral, but I've not owned one. I only know because I tinker with my cars to see what they will and won't do. I know my minivan will not shift out of park if the battery is dead (brake interlock won't release), so you have to pull up a little cover near the shifter and shove a small screwdriver down and trigger a release switch so you can get it out of park to move/tow it. I had to do this to back it out of my garage so I could jump it with my other car.
It said there was slow or stopped traffic in front of him. Presumably he had some clear space on the other side. He probably just had to veer *through* the other side of the road to get to some clear off-road space. Probably the side he was on had some obstacle to go off the road on that side -- e.g. steep drop-off, guardrail, etc.
Yes, but that is standard on most automatics from the 80s forward. The button is there to release it from park and get it from neutral to reverse. It should not be required to go from drive to neutral. It may be required for downshifting. It's there for two reasons. Safety from park (usually with a brake interface), and preventing you from shifting from a drive gear through neutral into reverse.
I remember various Ford pickups and SUVs haveing a recall for the cruise control causing fires.
Oh - I don’t buy his story, I was just showing the example.
Agreed. You can turn of the cruise by turning it off...or hitting "coast"...or tapping the brake. You put the transmission in neutral. You can turn off the engine.
I fail to believe that ALL of these options were inop all at once.
That said, we had a runaway incident with a Lexus here recently which crashed and killed a family of four. The driver was a CHP officer. That one was blamed on a stuck floor mat. I don't understand that either.
Well, the day was not wasted. I learned something new.
thanks,
“That is not necessarily so. There is a condition known as brake fade, where the brakes or even the brake fluid can get so hot that they fail to work properly. “
Assuming the brakes are working properly, I would generally expect that even with the engine running at full throttle they would be capable of hauling the car down from speed to a stop at least one time. Brake fade usually occurs when the brakes are used hard repeatedly (as in racing) or for a long period of time, like when descending a long, steep mountain grade.
Still, I’ll concede that it’s quite possible that the brakes couldn’t do the job in this case for one reason or another. I can imagine the guy riding the brake for a while to hold the speed down, rather than immediately bringing the car to a stop, overheating them in the process. Or, as you say, that they weren’t in proper working order in the first place. It would be an interesting experiment to run. With someone else’s vehicle, mind you - I’m not inclined to abuse my car like that.
Understood. I agree with you. I think any reasonably competent driver would have had this vehicle stopped in less than 1/4 mile.
Check out the link in post 191.
The 2002 Explorer automatics (at least the American versions) have column shifters. The only button on the column shifter (at the end) is to turn on/off overdrive. The safety override here is to pull toward you on the lever while shifting as opposed to floor shifters with buttons.
In the 60s at some of the cruise control systems were referred to as "auto pilot." I wonder if incidents like that caused the name change?
Because the right side of the road was full of cars waiting for a light to change - the wrong side of the road was not. Given a choice between running up the back of a line of cars at traffic lights at 50mph, or crossing to the empty side of the road, I know what I'd choose.
This is pretty much where I live. I'm less than a five minute drive from where he stopped. He'd just come off the freeway because it had ended - they'd kept him on it as long as they could and the police were trying to get him to a rural highway that's about a mile away down a fairly major road. But there was too much traffic here.
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