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car stuck at 60 mph on freeway

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So wait, he called Ford service and they told him not to drive the car, but he did anyway? Or was that call made when he was already on the highway. The article sacrifices clarity for sensationalism.

And he couldn't put the car in neutral? Odd.
 
as the article said, he was already driving.

Your car is stuck at 80 mph on a crowded highway. What do you do? What do you do?
 
Tim said:
So wait, he called Ford service and they told him not to drive the car, but he did anyway? Or was that call made when he was already on the highway. The article sacrifices clarity for sensationalism.
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Seemed pretty clear to me:

When the cruise control first malfunctioned on Tuesday afternoon Chase didn't panic, thinking it was only a temporary inconvenience.

Chase phoned a Ford dealership while driving and was told not to drive with a broken cruise control because it was dangerous, he recalled for reporters in Melbourne on Wednesday.

That certainly wasn't much help when he was speeding down the highway at a rate of knots, he recalled.
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I'm surprised using the parking brake didn't occur to him earlier, and why he didn't consider that large expanse of gently sloping grassy land off the side of the freeway a better option for him to drive into than oncoming traffic.
 
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He coudn't turn off the ignition or put the car in neutral? What kind of moron was this guy?
 
I would've gone for the hand break right away. Or driving off the road, if there was such a place available.

But, I would have pulled off the road the first time it malfunctioned, and not have kept driving.
 
Yeah, my first thought was the emergency brake as well. Plus, if as you say, there was grassland, that MIGHT also have led to drag that would lessen the speed of the car a bit, too, and make it easier to stop. What I do not understand is why he couldn't slam the regular brake REALLY hard, too.

Now, I used to have a cruise control in my old car that would turn itself OFF whenever it felt like it, which was annoying but I quit using it after it got like that. On my current car...I'm not exactly sure why, but I've never used the cruise control, and I'm not sure I ever will. I think the experience with the magically-deactivating one kind of soured me on the idea.
 
Noel Ghemor said:
Yeah, my first thought was the emergency brake as well. Plus, if as you say, there was grassland, that MIGHT also have led to drag that would lessen the speed of the car a bit, too, and make it easier to stop. What I do not understand is why he couldn't slam the regular brake REALLY hard, too.
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From the description, it sounds like his attempts to break were being countered by the cruise control increasing engine power. It's possible the anti-lock braking system got in on the game too----that can make braking much more difficult than normal.

If I were stuck with a car which absolutely refused to stop, I'd find a big field or a jogging track and start driving in circles until I ran out of gas. Riding the brake might hasten that process, at least if it didn't melt the brakes....
 
Noel Ghemor said:
Plus, if as you say, there was grassland, that MIGHT also have led to drag that would lessen the speed of the car a bit, too, and make it easier to stop.
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It's in the video. I kept going "dude, pull into the grass." He could have driven around in there forever without a problem.

 
Lindley said:
Noel Ghemor said:
Yeah, my first thought was the emergency brake as well. Plus, if as you say, there was grassland, that MIGHT also have led to drag that would lessen the speed of the car a bit, too, and make it easier to stop. What I do not understand is why he couldn't slam the regular brake REALLY hard, too.
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From the description, it sounds like his attempts to break were being countered by the cruise control increasing engine power. It's possible the anti-lock braking system got in on the game too----that can make braking much more difficult than normal.
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Right, but isn't there a switch in the brake tied to the cruise control? Normally, tapping the brake would click the cruise control off, and while obviously normal pressure wouldn't do the job, wouldn't stomping the brake all the way to the floorboard stand a chance of finally tripping the switch or at least forcing the car to stop in spite of the engine? I mean, yes, the engine IS running full-force, but there are ways to have the car, even the tires, going full-force while in a stopped position (gunning it in park, also, whatever it is that people do in the first stages of burning rubber).
 
This has happened a few times in the USA too. The one I remember was a woman was driving and she noticed she was going kind of fast, so she took her foot off the gas and her speed was still increasing. She used her cell phone, which were newish at the time and called 911 as she was 100+ down the high way.

She did exactly what everyone here said to do, she went into some field that had a pile of hay and crashed right into it.
 
My car did this once. I stuck my foot underneath the gas pedal and pulled it up.

Granted, it did it on a random road, and I was only going about 15 mph at the time, but it still freaked me out a bit.
 
12 Days of Locutus said:
Noel Ghemor said:
Plus, if as you say, there was grassland, that MIGHT also have led to drag that would lessen the speed of the car a bit, too, and make it easier to stop.
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It's in the video. I kept going "dude, pull into the grass." He could have driven around in there forever without a problem.

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Same here. I would have gone for the field as my first choice. However, am i the only one who sees a concrete median at the edge of the lane this guy is in? If you rub your tires on that it may cause enough friction to slow the car enough to either stop it or redline the engine long enough to blow it and let the car coast to a stop.

And, barring any other choices, I'd be up against that guardrail dragging my fenders if I had to.
 
It's kind of amusing to me how a lot of peoples' first reactions to reading about someone in a crisis situation is to try to determine how much better they could have handled it themselves...while they're not personally experiencing the crisis.

Then again, I live in Vermont, where we only have one major interstate, and trying to drive off of it most of the time would probably be a death sentence.
 
DonIago said:
It's kind of amusing to me how a lot of peoples' first reactions to reading about someone in a crisis situation is to try to determine how much better they could have handled it themselves...while they're not personally experiencing the crisis.
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There was quite a long period where it wasn't a major crisis yet, hence him calling the dealership before calling emergency services. He had plenty of time to think calmly and clearly.

While I haven't gotten stuck in cruise control before, I have had my brakes cut out on me while traveling at a good speed on a city street. It scared me a bit because I was heading towards stopped cars at an intersection, but I didn't start screaming like a little girl and freeze up. I downshifted and slowly pulled the parking brake and came to a stop in the bike lane.
 
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