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Old 02-26-2013, 01:39 PM
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Can't Know Can't Know is offline
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Fishy Hyundai Story...

Too much about this doesn't add up.

Full article here: Hyundai Elantra's alleged unintended acceleration sends teen, police on a 113-mile ride

Why didn't shutting off the car work? Neutral not working? Standing on the brakes? Assuming this did start with unintended acceleration, I'm thinking it's more likely the kid was panicky and couldn't actually function well enough to do these things properly. It seems unlikely the driver was simply lying, because he eventually lost control and crashed (survived with broken bones).

In these extreme cases I'm also curious why the troopers don't simply get in front of the driver and gently slow until the car makes contact, then start braking. So long as it is a straight road and there isn't surrounding traffic, that should work, at least with a smaller vehicle. You're not going to stop a concrete truck like that, but a Hyundai?



Quote:
Dispatchers urged the 16-year-old driver to try everything from turning the car off to standing on the brakes and putting the car in neutral, but Lushaj told them nothing was working. Flummoxed, police simply did their best to warn traffic away from the speeding compact with the hope that the car would eventually run out of fuel.
* * *
Hyundai, meanwhile, said that it hasn't heard anything on the case. Spokesperson Jim Trainor reported to WFAA that it was "extremely unlikely for simultaneous and spontaneous total system failures for the brakes, accelerator and transmission to occur at the same time" and notes that Hyundai would like to investigate, but this is the first they've heard of Lushaj's wild ride.
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