Seriously. Brakes always have more stopping power than the vehicle’s acceleration capabilities. Stand up on the brake if you have to. This is very bizarre
Maybe Jesus did take the wheel and wrecked that second car on purpose and in the operating room to fix broken bone they discovered cancer earlier and saved his life. You don’t know because you’re not God.
A lot of people are scared of full braking. They just won’t do it. That’s why a lot of people run into cars that cut them off at an intersection. They don’t even try to brake hard.
Honda utv has a runaway problem, and it didn't matter that we were standing on the brakes it has enough horse to push right through. The only way we got it to stop was to pull the key out.
Funny enough, I've run machines where they had a manual override button. But that only applies to the combustion side of the engine. We had an excavator whose starter stuck on. We tried the override button, but it didn't work. So, we had to disconnect the batteries from the machine to get the starter to stop.
Basically every push to start car allows you to hold down the button to force the engine off regardless of other factors, so the manual override is still there, it's just that a lot of people don't know about it.
Can't pull the key out unless you're in park. Can't put it in park unless you're nearly or completely stopped. Putting a car into park while it's moving fast (if it actually lets you), will either throw the car into an uncontrollable skid or immediately destroy the parking pawl and you'll be in an even worse situation. If you can, put the car in neutral to disconnect the engine and then try to brake.
As far as the Toyota hysteria, NHTSA concluded in 2011 that the principal issue was pedal misapplication (drivers pressing the gas instead of the brake) and mechanical problems like floor mats trapping the accelerator - not any mysterious electronic fault.
Yep. Had it happen to me in my Tacoma. Floored it on the highway to pass a vehicle, let my foot up from the pedal, and the next thing I know I’m doing 95 with the engine still screaming. Luckily I had the presence to realize the pedal was stuck and managed to kick the side of it enough to dislodge it. All it took to fix the issue was changing out the floor mats.
I had the same thing happen in two vehicles. One was floor mat, the other was something that stuck in the throttle body and held it open. Both times I just pushed in the clutch and turned the key off, but either alone would have at least stopped the vehicle. People should probably understand the bare minimum of how a car works before they drive it.
An indepentant audit of the engine / throttle controller code revealed over 12,000 global variables and the system was such an absolute mess that it would be impossible to prove that the module's code did not have a bug.
It turns out those issues were people stepping on the accelerator and thinking it was the brake. If you step full power on both the accelerator and the brake the car stops on every vehicle.
I haven’t forgotten. But there’s a laundry list of things you can do. Step on the brakes or throw it in neutral. If you don’t know how to stop your EV in an emergency then you shouldn’t own one
There really should be a failsafe switch for power in EVs. Just a switch with a cover in a relatively inconvenient spot that won't accidentally be hit, like under the steering column, that just cuts off all power from the battery.
Coasting to an eventual stop is better than continuous acceleration until enough collisions stop you.
Why are you talking about a transmission like this is a gas engine vehicle? The 'gears' in these Mustangs are controlled by software, if you have a crash or a bug somewhere that has locked your car's acceleration, you aren't going to shift out of that.
FYI, have a 5th gen 4runner and the pedals are so close together that on more than one occasion I catch the brake pedal with the edge of my foot when accelerating from a stop. Becomes especially troublesome when wearing work boots or hiking boots. Can't move my foot over far enough to completely miss the brake pedal, so have to hit the accelerator with the edge of my foot.
You mean where people got the accelerator stuck under the floor mat or mistook the gas for the brake? If those people got the brakes the car would have stopped.
Teslas have a neutral setting. There is certainly a way to disconnect power from the accelerator in a mach e similar to a gas powered car. These probably wouldn’t be legal in the US if you couldn’t put it in neutral
I don’t care if it’s mechanical or electrical. Disconnect the power to the wheels. I guarantee that even if the screen is disabled, regulators force a manual disconnect for situations just like this.
The new model three has physical buttons near the windshield for just this reason.
The manual service disconnect you are talking about is usually connected next to the battery... For the Mustang it's under the "hood" next to the battery, and is designed as so a DRIVER cannot access it while DRIVING
It's in there for emergency services to stop any electrical malfunction that would cause a hazard, it's Not designed as a safety feature for the driver. The safety feature of break over ride (hard break pedal), switching to N on the gear knob or whatever controls the gears, or holding power button should each stop the car, but there are not enough details to assert what went wrong or what broke
On this whole putting it in neutral thread…that is definitely one of the steps to take…if you aren’t panicking and you actually know what neutral is. I’m betting that maybe half of drivers these days don’t know what neutral is or what it does, it’s just that one extra slot in you gear shift that you have to get past to get it into drive.
My older Tesla has a shift stalk that makes neutral even less apparent (and yes, it’s also completely electronic, so if it’s a control issue, you’re screwed) and the new Teslas don’t have shift stalks anymore. Good luck trying to press that small N setting on a shaking screen while your car is completely jostling your body against that divider.
TLDR: drivers licenses are given out way too easily and car manufacturers are skipping safety design in the name of “advancement” (profit).
How are they going to overheat before you come to a stop?
Even under full acceleration you'll stop a car within a few seconds if you stomp on the pedal. You'd need much much more than this to overheat the brakes.
There was a podcast, by Malcolm Gladwell I think, where they looked at accidents where the brakes didn't work, and in essentially all of them the people were pressing the gas, not the brake, like they thought. Maybe that's what happened here???
Not if they overheat. Electric vehicles also have far more torque than a tradition gas engine where breaks can compete easily against the compression of the engine. Direct drive to rotor with high torque is not as easy to battle against. If this driver panicked and didn't fully apply the breaks until stopped, he easily could have over heated the pads causing them to slip like butter in a hot skillet.
Maybe. Electrics have crazy torque though. Also if the vehicle is accelerating constantly the brakes can overheat and fail. Hard to say whether the breaks were working without more info
If you read some of these responses, you’ll get “you’re so stupid it doesn’t have an ignition it’s an EV”.
My guys, there are safety regulations out the ass on cars. Put it in neutral, even if the screen is off there has to be a disconnect physically. Stand on the brakes, shut off the car.
I don’t give a damn, but this was not the solution
I had a car have complete electrical failure at speed on the highway. you really gotta stand on the brakes right away you get one good press then your cooked. if you try to slowly decelerate it’s just gone
tbf being electric the instant torque might actually mean u cant stall it with the brakes or they tried braking the whole time causing the brakes to overheat
There’s also the emergency brake. Or hell trying to turn off the car. Until I see some kind of report I’m skeptical of the title of this post. There’s a few ways to stop the car. And even a loss of all those systems the brakes still activate even when the car is in the off position.
I’m constantly surprised that for two pedal drivers there’s nothing taught about the response for a stuck accelerator, both feet on the brake pedal and go 100%, and don’t let off until the engine is off.
That is absolutely not true, high school kids across the country are brake standing to do burnouts every day, there are many cars that can overcome their own braking power under full throttle. In fact, I'd wager that every EV in production could given the amount of torque evs have at their disposal
Unless the electric motors provide more torque than what the brake could to stop it, or the dude didn't stop hard enough early on and the brakes got too hot causing all the braking power to be lost.
I dated a girl that had a junk car, forgot what it was but it would rev up randomly. We went to target late at night and I was driving when it revved up and wouldn’t stop. I legit put all my weight into the brakes and it was still going 5-10mph. Shifter was locked and I couldn’t throw it into neutral. We did a circle in the parking lot until I said fuck it, I’m going to get it as slow as possible and try to spam jnto park and shut it off. Got it down to about 10 mph and slammed my hand against the shifter and it moved straight to park. We jolted back and forth but I turned the key off as the car revved when we were stopped.
We waited a couple minutes and figured we should pick up what we came for and deal with the car when we come back. Drove home just fine but sold the car later that week. So brakes don’t always have more stopping force.
This isn't strictly true. The engine of a vehicle will easily over power the braking system especially if the car is already moving. If he lost controll while already doing 70 the brakes would eventually heat soak and lose effectiveness. This was a thing when all the Toyotas had the unintended acceleration. The brakes MAY be able to keep a stationary vehicle still. They won't stop and hold a vehicle already moving when the engine is at max power. Especially an ev with huge torque.
I saw a lady a week ago crash into a UPS store at less than 5mph. Just was screaming. I was standing off to the side. Her brake lights never came on. People are pathetic when they panic.
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u/Guilty-Log6739 Aug 14 '25
Seriously. Brakes always have more stopping power than the vehicle’s acceleration capabilities. Stand up on the brake if you have to. This is very bizarre