lexusrus

SMART STOP FEATURE REVISITED on the anniversary of the firery crash on Aug 28, 2009

All Lexus vehicles since then are updated with the SMART STOP FEATURE where if the gas and brake paddles are SIMULTANEOUSLY applied, the BRAKE paddle will win and bring the Lexus to a stop.

But I wonder what about the Lexus models made BEFORE 2009? Are they getting retrofitted by the Lexus dealership at no charge? If not retrofitted, then this must be done ASAP if you have one of these older Lexus vehicles.

The driver who was killed along with his family in a 2009 Lexus ES350 WAS a California Highway Patrol. I wonder even with his advanced tactical driving training, he did not have a chance to just push the automatic transmission shifter to NEUTRAL?? I guess everyone has 20-20 hind sight. In the extreme panicking situation, things just happened too quickly to react, even with advanced training.

An article excert from:

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/...htmlstory.html
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"A fiery crash that killed a California Highway Patrol officer and three family members continues to raise questions as investigators try to determine whether their loaner car's accelerator stuck and what – if anything – could have prevented Friday's tragedy.

The 2009 Lexus ES 350 came from Bob Baker Lexus El Cajon, where CHP officer Mark Saylor of Chula Vista had dropped off his regular vehicle for servicing."

Droid13

There is a huge difference between training and problem solving. A well trained person can usually respond to the conditions trained for quite well, but how they respond to other situations is entirely a different matter. I'm sure the driver as highway patrol was trained in high speed driving and tactics, I doubt said training discussed how to diagnose and handle all unexpected vehicle anomalies during high speed driving. As example, airline pilots are regularly and highly trained to handle all kinds of issues, and they usually handle those situations with a fair amount of skill and grace. Through them a situation they haven't been trained for (or separate overlapping issues where they've only trained how to handle one at a time), and we see the difference between trained (they've corkscrewed into the ground) and dynamic problem solving (lands gracefully on river).

lexusrus

You are absolutely correct!!

Now that think of it. Another example is the use of ex-military Air Force pilots to fly commercial jets WITHOUT much, if any, additional training at all in the daily operations of China Airlines. It was a well known "EASY PATH" back in the 1990's (probably even longer before that) in China Airlines (Taiwan, Republic of China, not MAINLAND CHINA). Since then, the new pilots of China Airlines are sent to the USA for additional training (and almost on all China Airlines longer flights, there is an American (USA) pilot in the cockpit). I guess there is a difference between flying a fighter jet vs a civilian commercial jet.

https://flightfox.com/tradecraft/wor...lines-debunked

"In the 1990's China Airlines was hiring mostly ex-Republic of China Air Force pilots. These pilots were not civilian-trained and had no proven track records of flying commercially."

vlad_a

This useless feature exists as a part of unintended acceleration debacle.
It's there to satisfy a hypothetical situation where 2 redundant gas pedal position sensors were to get shorted out and both would send full throttle command to the ECU.
This US-sourced part sent linear results from both sensors, while other manufacturers resorted to non-linear output from both, which would signal the ECU of a problem if sensors indeed failed and sent an identical signal.

It does not do anything if a person confuses brake and gas pedals.

I had a 2003 Lexus IS300 that I was issued a check for in the amount of $120 because no such device could be retrofitted. Last thing I wanted on a manual car, even if it was possible.

A much better approach would be to actually teach drives what to do in such situations. Moot point by now, many new vehicles will self-brake when an onboard camera detects an obstacle.

P.S.
Even puny Priuses were blamed to have unintended acceleration while the government was bailing-out the big 3. Coincidence or Chevrolet Volt sales booster?