Kein_Ersatz

+1, My wife is tired of me commenting on all the TV news coverage of stupid people who say things like "I called my husband (while the throttle was stuck and I am driving 100mph) to hear his voice one more time", then god intervened ....)

Put the transmission in Neutral, both feet on the brake pedal, and pull the heck over!!!!!! No god necessary.

Otherwise start riding the bus and hand over the car keys.

Kein_Ersatz

[QUOTE=Veloce Raptor;7359189]What a bunch of nanny state socialist focktards we have inside the beltway...


+1 they smell blood in the water and a distraction from the horrible job they are doing running this place.

Larry Herman

Against the popular trend here, I think that the Gov't should legislate to made cars as idiot-proof as possible. Unlike all of you out there, most people do not care about driving or the quality of their driving. Their cars are only fancy appliances to get them from point A to point B. Nothing that you can do or say will change that, and more training probably will not help. This is America, land of the litigious, and people are free to be mindless idiots with no accountability for their actions.


Besides, it gives our more entrepreneurial race shops something else to fix on our cars.

ervtx

The litigious nature of these issues may be more significant than Gov't legislation. Fear of being sued is one of the motivations that drive manufacturers to install idiot-defeating devices. If the courts won't can't make them accountable for their own idiocy, the manufacturers have to defend the idiots from themselves - that is, if they want to continue selling their cars to idiots. Expanding their market requires selling to more idiots. More idiots, more mindless actions, more litigation, more idiot-defeating devices. It's a vicious circle. I agree that there is not much that will change it.

racer

mmm Government motors have added to cars, over the years and in no particular order.. Airbags, ABS, Stability control, TPMS, bumpers, impact bumpers, padded dashes, seatbelts, mirrors,... And while the Audi runaway acceleration in the 1980s created the lockout feature, Toyotas will create legislation to require gas overide. In about 2015-2016 would be my guess.

As for manual trans, fewer than 10% of US car sales had manuals.. so, out of 15 million cars sold in the US last year, hardly 1 million had a manual trans and that number is shrinking. Even enthusaist companies like BMW realize few US drivers want a manual and heck, FERRARI doesn't even offer a manual on at least the new 458 if not others.

As the "car" has improved in reliability and comfort over the last 30 years, it truly HAS become an appliance moreso now than ever before. Heck, I recall reading in the local newspaper the RISE of kids who at 15-16-17 are too used to being chauffered around by protective parents to even want to get a license.

fatbillybob

Email Sen John Rockefeller and Barbara Boxer. Times has these two involved in this. let them know the truth like how dumb it is to have a tranny lockout vs yet another baby sitter which can fail all tied into a single ECU which can fail. What's better another electric circuit or a big manual switch called your stick shift? They don't need to legislate another layer of electronics they need to legislate out the tranny lockout.

chrisp

I'm ok with all of this stuff as long as it's not too invasive (how many people really left foot brake on the street?) and it protects me from idiots. I'm out there on the open road and want some protection from the idiots who continually challenge semi-idiot proof systems.

fatbillybob

No education is the answer "not" more government.


This post on a similar issue speaks to the heart of the issues.... "Bad idea. It's the old slippery slope thing. If you can tax cigarettes because it is bad behavior and unhealthy what is to stop Uncle Sam from taxing prime rib for the same reason. You can get a lot of support for that right now and all you would be doing is to support the basic philosophy that it is a proper role of government."

Larry Herman

People constantly prove that education is NOT the answer. Some may benefit, but I think that most will not. Remember the old adage "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink".

ew928

Good one I heard some time ago.
Real nice older gent says he dives into the left-most lane of the Garden State Parkway (4-5 lane twisty divided highway) when he gets on and does about the speed limit. He felt he was safer there away from the other traffic.
I'm not sure edumacating drivers will help them 'get it'.

So is there some sort of trick to get the E-Transmission to go into Neutral when the engine is revving?

chrisp

A few nights ago I was walking along the front sidewalk between a store and it's parking lot. I was with my wife and kids and wrestling with my 2 yr old to stay on the sidewalk and out of the parking lot. I was paying more attention to him than anything else (mind you I was on a sidewalk) and suddenly hear a loud engine next to me. I look up and I'm standing in front of an F-250 truck with two kids (probably 5-7 yrs old) inside. The parents had left them in the running truck while they went inside to shop. One was behind the wheel and the other was jumping between the front seats.

This is an excellent example of my point. The kid jumping seats could have easily dumped the shifter into D while the other was behind the wheel (couldn't reach the pedals). With the torque that a truck like that has, he would not have needed to rev the engine to get it to jump onto the sidewalk. A brake shift interlock may have been the thing keeping that F-250 from pinning me and my family against the store front wall 3 feet behind me while these kid's idotic parents are inside shopping.

Yes you can educate the parents to shut the off the engine or not have the kids in the truck to begin with but the shift-brake interlock is one of only a few layers of security between me and the idiot's of the world.

Keep 'em coming.

fatbillybob

I think we have proved it over and over again. In fact most of us parents live it encouraging, cajoling, threatening our kids to learn, not make the same mistakes we did, and get ahead. If we did not why bother?

I am an old guy. In 1960 just about everyone smoked and it was cool and fashionable. 40 years later smoking is nearly dead in this country. You light up a cig in a restaurant you'll be tarred and feathered! What more than education, resultant public pressure and resultant legislation has contributed to this phenomenon?

fatbillybob

Well we could just legislate all the cars off the road like the gun grabbers want to do with guns. After all, more people die from auto accidents than gun deaths. If the rational case can be made for confiscating all the guns certainly we can legislate away 3000 pound weapons of mass destruction. Does that make you feel all warm and fuzzy?

Larry Herman

You can always find something that proves the opposite. Of course your children will learn in such a warm, loving and intimate setting. And institutions that make learning exciting will be able to more easily impart that information, but there are still those who won't learn even then, and how many adults refuse to learn because they are simply not interested in the subject?

Your smoking example shows that it took 40 years to accomplish a change, essentially the generation who refused to learn died off and a new, more interested generation replaced them. So it will take 40 years to get most drivers to jump on the brakes hard & shut the key off?

No, I'm afraid that most adults will not take the time to learn something new unless it directly affects them, or they have developed a passion for learning about it.

chrisp

You're way too much of an extremist and fatalist for me. You took an example citing the value of a totally non-invasive brake shift interlock and turned it into total ban of vehicles.

By the way, I wouldn't mind a ban of 3,000 lb cars. Mine is 3,600.

How many more people die from pre-meditated gun related deaths than from pre-meditated car deaths? I think a lot. As a percentage you're probably talking 90-95%. Accidental gun deaths are horrible but it's the loonies running around killing people as a hobby that's the real problem.