Re: UNINTENDED ACCELERATION

[Phil Ethier <ethier@freenet.msp.mn.us>]

On Tue, 26 Sep 1995, Psychos 'R Us wrote:

> In the late 80s, the most hoopla-ed about is the Audi by the 60 Minute 
> show -- although they could never get it to repleat even with rigged 
> Audi. On the other hand, they did nice demonstration of several Ford trucks 
> exploding.

Nope.  It was GM trucks, and I think it was ABC's 20/20, but I am not 
sure.  Might have been NBC, but it was not CBS.  Their defense was that they 
used a wee bit of explosives to re-create effects that had been observed.  The
filmed sequence was not an experiment, but a demonstration.  This is OK 
with me, IF they tell me that.  Sort of like the Survival Anglia program 
disclaimer:  "All scenes, whether real or created, depict documented 
behavior of wildlife." or some like statement.

That reminds me of the furor over a Volvo add which used internal 
reinforcing to show a monster truck crushing cars, but unable to crush a 
Volvo.  There was a disclaimer that this was a re-creation of an actual 
occurrence at a monster-truck show in New England.  Other monster-truck 
owners subsequently crushed Volvos to show it could be done.

> If anyone has eye-balled closely on rec.autos.* in early 90s, several keen 
> news browers will notice some people has also posted the same phenomenon 
> happening on Toyota Camrys and Honda Accords. But without 60 Minute's 
> backing, the voices eventually died.

Actually, the Audi phenomenon was all over the newspapers long before the 
60 Minutes show, sparked by the case of a minister's wife who killed her 
son with her 5000.

> I believe all Audi automatics had this problem. 

Nope.  It was specifically the 5000 automatic.

Phil Ethier