ouch... that looks like it could have been unpleasant. On the plus side, the first responders shouldn't have had any trouble extracting the occupant(s) from the vehicle.
Did the driver hit the house? Or did the rescue workers just pick up the car and throw it over there after everyone was treated (or hauled away to the Hospital)?
never made it to the house. it hit the concrete in front of the house. very interesting to see how the chassis reacted in the crash. i'm betting the driver is ok as you can see the rescue workers all standing over someone on a stretcher in the background versus running the stretcher to the ambulance.
That appears to be in Belgium and they say it's the second one to crash in Belgium. I think from my very poor Dutch, that the other one crashed after hydroplaneing. Other sites say that this crash was caused by a stuck throttle cable after the driver just had it worked on and that he had 2 broken legs.
The concrete looks good.
Proposal for safety device to guard against stuck throttles (seems to be an increasingly common problem):
Sensors measure the position of the throttle and the pressure on the gas pedal, by way of a tilting gas pedal like most cars already have. Whenever your foot is on the gas, the tilt changes slightly from the resting position.
If the car detects a combination of high throttle that isn't changing and no pressure on the gas pedal, it cuts the ignition. The device is set and disabled with controls under the hood - a button to sample a new idle level, and a switch to override the device in case of a malfunction.
Given that most cars are moving to drive-by-wire throttles these days, it would seem that stuck throttles should be a thing of the past. Or at least, the sensors are already in place to put in an ignition cut if the throttle pedal position and the throttle plate position don't match.
The new Harleys are Fly By Wire for the throttle. There have been issues. Several have said the thing took off by itself and were lucky to avoid crashes. I think there's been some wrecks also. Of course, HD denies, blah, blah. Our LS400 is FBW on the throttle. Never had a problem with it, but I find it responds slower than a cable would be when starting out. It takes some getting used to in order to take off from a stop without jerking from the V8 acceleration. There is also a cable override for it that will open the throttle partially if you put the pedal to the floor. I suspect that is so that if the FBW fails, you can still limp home.
I saw in that forum where someone said that their Atom had a stuck throttle once when the motor mount broke and the linkage wedged itself up on the frame. Combined with the driver's story of just having it rebuilt after an accident, and maybe something similar happened. I wonder where the kill switch is on that thing. I've seen two of those at our car show and one at Hallett.
I think the kill is on the dash, I'll check my pictures at home.
I've seen a Corvette blow a drive-by-wire fuse on the track. I couldn't figure out why he was just idling around. Pretty funny actually. Could the HD riders have been using the drive-by-wire as an excuse for their crashes?
Jerking, etc, is all up to the programming. Drive-by-wire is superior from a throttle response standpoint because the ECU can anticipate the slug of air coming into the cylinders. I was talking to the guy who did the ECU programming for the Range Rover Sport, and the throttle is remapped in low range to make it easier to drive the car smoothly. Cool.
Drive by wire scares me. A careless/tired/mad programmer could spell disaster. And you may never know where the problems stemmed from.
Know most modern cars use some form of CAN which, once hacked, will open up a new can of worms with aftermarket programmers, DIY, ... Heck, you could give a car a "virus" that under the right conditions the throttle would stick. 32 degree steering, 35 mph, 30% throttle. bam. instant WOT.
Do I sound like a nut yet? but seriously, that would make a good practical joke.
I saw in that forum where someone said that their Atom had a stuck throttle once when the motor mount broke and the linkage wedged itself up on the frame. Combined with the driver's story of just having it rebuilt after an accident, and maybe something similar happened. I wonder where the kill switch is on that thing. I've seen two of those at our car show and one at Hallett.
Two words: Clutch Pedal.
I know they start by you waving the key fob in front of the dash somewhere and then pressing the start / stop button.
Trivia question: How can you easily tell that this vehicle is an Ariel Motors car and not an American Bramma Motorsports car?
Hint: It has to do with the suspension. GRM readers should know this one . . .
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