Runaway Car

Hicham Dequiedt claims that the reason he had to drive 125 miles at 120 mph, weaving in and out of traffic and speeding down the hard shoulder, was that the cruise control got stuck. Somehow, miraculously, he managed to stop the car just before he would have smashed into a toll booth. His story sounded a little fishy to me the first time I saw it two days ago. And apparently other people think it's fishy as well. Renault, the manufacturer of his car, says that they've examined his vehicle and can't find anything wrong with it. Perhaps Dequiedt just felt like going on a joyride. Or perhaps Renault is trying to get off the hook. Hard to know. I can understand the cruise control getting stuck, but usually the brakes would still work. (Oh, and Slashdot has a pretty lively thread going about this incident).

Exploration/Travel

Posted on Thu Oct 07, 2004


Comments

HOORAY!!! I got the same score in both tests alex did.
Posted by john  on  Thu Oct 07, 2004  at  08:21 PM
wait a minute this isn't the gullibility test quiz!

oops
Posted by john  on  Thu Oct 07, 2004  at  08:21 PM
Funny. I have a friend who's a diesel mechanic. He's been getting a lot of "runaways" (that's what the cars with stuck accelorators are called). Usually, the brakes can't come close to stopping the car. The best you can hope for is to use the emergency brake to slow the car enough to let you "crash" it into a wall. Then, you wait for the engine to sieze or explode. He's has to put several engines back together because of this just this month. There's no rhyme or reason to it. And it happens with gasoline powered engines too.

However, the fact that the guy just managed to stop it for the toll booth sounds fishy to me, too. Like I said, normally, these vehicles stop because the engines sieze or explode...
Posted by Ga  on  Fri Oct 08, 2004  at  02:50 PM
Did he ever think about shfiting into neutral? Every (automatic) car I've owned all you had to do is push up(forward)on the shift lever and it kicked into neutral. A stop prevents it from going into reverse. Push in the clutch pedal in on a manual.
Posted by Vic K.  on  Fri Oct 08, 2004  at  09:11 PM
It is possible for the cruise control to get stuck. This happened to my Dad once while I was in the car. He shifted it into neutral and then glided off of the highway. However, I sincerely doubt that your cruise control would get stuck at 120mph and then miraculously give you back control right before you hit something....very fishy!
Posted by ss  on  Sun Oct 10, 2004  at  04:58 PM
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