tex2670

I'd really love an explanation as to how the car's brakes didn't work and could not be put into neutral...

mmarshall

Good work. My guess is that the Trooper gets another chevron-stripe for his uniform and a pay raise.

Hopefully what is left of the car gets back to Honda for their engineers try and figure out what happened, if possible. This is not the first time, of course, that we've seen unintended-acceleration from vehicles. Noted examples in the past are from Toyota/Lexus and Audi.

tex2670

Toyota and Audi were proven to be user error.

Striker223

All from driver error on those, usually floor mats or other items

link13

Being a crappy driver is not the car's fault.

FrankReynoldsCPA

I'd bet money when all is said and done, this was a stupid kid with the gas pedal buried.

Stroock639

he didn't have the app for that downloaded XD

for real though a cars brakes should have no problem overpowering the engine... i'm pretty sure when the whole audi 5000 thing happened they (audi) made a short video demonstrating that it's not even close and the car could easily be stopped

but ok i'll play just a little bit of devil's advocate here, maybe the pads were totally worn down? still doesn't excuse not having the sense to pop it into N

tex2670

The 911 operator told him to shift into N, and allegedly, he was not able to do so. Same with pressing the brake. Very curious.

LeX2K

Not necessarily. If the person drags the brakes they will heat up and lose their stopping power and won't be able to bring the car to a complete stop. People do very dumb things when they panic dragging the brakes is one, failing to realize neutral is an option is another.

I thought every modern car had logic that limits engine power if you are on the brakes.

mmarshall

The kid said that, for whatever reason, it would not go into neutral.

SW17LS

Because he never tried to put it into neutral lol

Look, in an emergency situation people freak out and they make mistakes, don't think clearly, etc. Especially young people, not to fault this kid...he's a kid...theres a reason why first responders, pilots etc etc are trained how to stay calm and follow procedures in a crisis...that requires training.

My issue is when people make understandable mistakes in those situations and then blame others and the vehicles they are driving for those mistakes. For one, its unfair. Two, it keeps them from learning from those mistakes.

mmarshall

Well, we don't know that for a fact.....that's an assumption you're making. It's often easy to blame young people for inexperience when sometimes their minds are actually sharper than ours.

tex2670

According to news reports, the 911 operator told him to put the car in N, and he said he tried but it didn't work. Same with applying the brakes. Seems odd that nothing worked, even after 911 tried to talk him thru.

tex2670

This may be the case, but we ought to be suspicious of a story like this because the likelihood that one single car out of millions on the road behaves in the manner where NOTHING works to stop the car by the driver is very very very low. If this were a computer glitch, other cars would do the same thing.

link13

Agreed. I point at the driver before suspecting that anything is wrong with the car.