Unintended Acceleration - really happens

[DeWitt Harrison]

On Mon, 07 Aug 2006 17:39:40 -0400
        Huw Powell <audi at humanspeakers.com> wrote:

> >>wrong place, did a U turn, got back on the boulevard, and the UA
> >>started.
>
> Well, for starters, UA is a fairly common phenomenon and happens in many
> makes and models.  It tends to show up worse on automatics, but is not
> confined to them.  A simple stuck linkage will do it...
>
> Of course, the "nightmare" factor back in the good ole type 44 UA panic
> was that the people tended to have their foot on the *wrong pedal* - ie,
> thought they were braking hard, but were flooring it.  Hard to fix that.
>

My father killed himself in a farm accident with what I would call
under-intended clutch operation. Oddly, he was not a skilled driver
of manual transmissions and his instinct to release the clutch as the
tractor was climbing up over him was absent.

I also had a colleague at work shoot across a busy intersection (yes,
there was a very bad accident) because he confused the brake and
accelerator pedals in an automatic tranny car. It makes me crazy when
I'm behind a driver who obviously has the left foot on the brake and the
right foot on the accelerator. Cars should be designed to shock the
shit out of anyone who puts both feet on those pedals simultaneously.
I don't know what it is about American drivers. European drivers would
be immediately executed at the side of the road for such stupidity.

On the plus side, I was able to afford my '88 5000CS because of
highly publicized stupidity of this kind. What say we draw straws
to see who will drive a rented 2006 Audi A8 into a bridge abutment
while CBS is filming? Faulty speed-compensated steering? Excessively
excellent stereo? 2006 A8 for $5,000? I could get excited about Audi
all over again.

DeWitt Harrison
'88 5000CStq