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These unintended acceleration incidents seem to happen mostly to elderly drivers. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/03/how-real-are-the-defects-

These unintended acceleration incidents seem to happen mostly to elderly drivers. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/03/how-real-are-the-defects-in-toyotas-cars/37448/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/03/how-real...

reitanqild 11y ago
Is there any reason why this pattern hasn't been widely reported? Edit: I mean, -if it was this obvious we should have known it by now?
- pjc50 11y ago
  That source was Megan McArdle, who is a libertarian partisan. It's trying to discredit the complainants. The actual court case had an expert who looked at the code and found bugs where the possibility of unintended acceleration could come about. I'm not saying it's not true about the ages of the complainants, but it's certainly trying to present a particular interpretation of unknown events.
- Lagged2Death 11y ago
  Is there any reason why this pattern hasn't been widely reported? My recollection is: It was widely reported at the time.
  - reitanqild 11y ago
    My fault then. HN is my primary source of US news but I guess this was featured in more mainstream news.
- mikeash 11y ago
  Because "you experienced unintended acceleration because you panicked and wouldn't release the accelerator" and "you should have just mashed the brakes until the car stopped" and "shift into neutral, silly" don't make for interesting stories and all have the smell of victim-blaming, even if completely true.
mannykannot 11y ago
I saw that when it first came out, but I have come to think that under the noise of age-related accidents, there are a few incidents that cannot be explained away, possibly including the one that this article leads with. It is also possible that younger drivers generally reacted faster to problems and were able to avoid serious accidents (IIRC, some of the less ambiguous crashes did occur to younger drivers.) Ultimately, Toyota was heavily penalized for fielding safety-critical software that it could not show was acceptably safe, which is a reasonable and desirable outcome, IMHO.
ebbv 11y ago
And more importantly than that there are a couple of underlying facts that invalidate the whole premise that unintended acceleration means automatic accidents/death: 1) None of these cars are 700hp Supras that accelerate at drastic speeds. These were normal consumer cars that frankly aren't that fast even with the throttle fully depressed. 2) The brakes in all of these vehicles are many times more powerful than the engine. Pressing the brakes would have stopped the vehicles, even if the engine were attempting to accelerate full throttle. In most cases I would never side with the corporation over average people. But this is one of those rare cases where lawyers were able to hire dishonest "experts" and snow over the judge and jury and get an unjust verdict.
- UnoriginalGuy 11y ago
  Your two point list is silly. Consumer cars & SUVs can go 0-60 in under 10 seconds in almost all cases, and the fact that the brake can overcome that acceleration is great, except it takes time, and within the time between unexpected acceleration and stopping damage/injuries/death can occur. I had a water bottle fall onto my right leg while turning, this caused a sudden but short lived acceleration (e.g. 10 MpH of unexpected acceleration for less than 1 second), this was enough to cause me to mount the curb, and do some decent property/car damage (thank god nobody was on the curb). The brakes worked perfectly, and stopped the car, but it does show how much damage even a tiny burst of unexpected acceleration can do (the entire incident was under 5-10 seconds). It honestly boggles my mind that someone can dismiss any length of unexpected acceleration because "cars [aren't] 700 hp Supras." Consumer cars are plenty powerful enough to cause injury and death due to any length (even 1 second) of unexpected acceleration at the wrong moment. Sure, if you're going straight on the freeway then you aren't going to even notice, but in a car park, while turning, or stopped at a school crossing, the brake's ability to overcome the engine are largely irrelevant since you won't be expecting it.
  - alistairSH 11y ago
    Agreed. Modern cars, even the modest ones, are fast enough that they can get out of control very quickly. While the brakes certainly can slow a vehicle with its throttle stuck open, the real question is what impact does that stuck throttle have on the average driver? When the brake doesn't work as expected, does the average driver continue to brake? Do they pump the brake pedal? Something else altogether? How long does it take them to regain composure and act sensibly (in this case, putting the car in neutral while continuing to brake aggressively)? If that slowed reaction is more than some fraction of a second, accidents will happen.
dmethvin 11y ago
In this particular case, 150-foot skid marks indicate that the driver was trying pretty hard to stop. No doubt there are accelerator-brake confusions in many of these cases, especially with older drivers. I'm really hesitant to say they all are in that category. Investigators need more "black box" info to see, for example, whether the accelerator and/or brake were being pressed in the seconds before an accident.

reitanqild 11y ago

Is there any reason why this pattern hasn't been widely reported? Edit: I mean, -if it was this obvious we should have known it by now?

pjc50 11y ago
That source was Megan McArdle, who is a libertarian partisan. It's trying to discredit the complainants. The actual court case had an expert who looked at the code and found bugs where the possibility of unintended acceleration could come about. I'm not saying it's not true about the ages of the complainants, but it's certainly trying to present a particular interpretation of unknown events.
Lagged2Death 11y ago
Is there any reason why this pattern hasn't been widely reported? My recollection is: It was widely reported at the time.
- reitanqild 11y ago
  My fault then. HN is my primary source of US news but I guess this was featured in more mainstream news.
mikeash 11y ago
Because "you experienced unintended acceleration because you panicked and wouldn't release the accelerator" and "you should have just mashed the brakes until the car stopped" and "shift into neutral, silly" don't make for interesting stories and all have the smell of victim-blaming, even if completely true.

mannykannot 11y ago

I saw that when it first came out, but I have come to think that under the noise of age-related accidents, there are a few incidents that cannot be explained away, possibly including the one that this article leads with. It is also possible that younger drivers generally reacted faster to problems and were able to avoid serious accidents (IIRC, some of the less ambiguous crashes did occur to younger drivers.) Ultimately, Toyota was heavily penalized for fielding safety-critical software that it could not show was acceptably safe, which is a reasonable and desirable outcome, IMHO.

ebbv 11y ago

And more importantly than that there are a couple of underlying facts that invalidate the whole premise that unintended acceleration means automatic accidents/death: 1) None of these cars are 700hp Supras that accelerate at drastic speeds. These were normal consumer cars that frankly aren't that fast even with the throttle fully depressed. 2) The brakes in all of these vehicles are many times more powerful than the engine. Pressing the brakes would have stopped the vehicles, even if the engine were attempting to accelerate full throttle. In most cases I would never side with the corporation over average people. But this is one of those rare cases where lawyers were able to hire dishonest "experts" and snow over the judge and jury and get an unjust verdict.

UnoriginalGuy 11y ago
Your two point list is silly. Consumer cars & SUVs can go 0-60 in under 10 seconds in almost all cases, and the fact that the brake can overcome that acceleration is great, except it takes time, and within the time between unexpected acceleration and stopping damage/injuries/death can occur. I had a water bottle fall onto my right leg while turning, this caused a sudden but short lived acceleration (e.g. 10 MpH of unexpected acceleration for less than 1 second), this was enough to cause me to mount the curb, and do some decent property/car damage (thank god nobody was on the curb). The brakes worked perfectly, and stopped the car, but it does show how much damage even a tiny burst of unexpected acceleration can do (the entire incident was under 5-10 seconds). It honestly boggles my mind that someone can dismiss any length of unexpected acceleration because "cars [aren't] 700 hp Supras." Consumer cars are plenty powerful enough to cause injury and death due to any length (even 1 second) of unexpected acceleration at the wrong moment. Sure, if you're going straight on the freeway then you aren't going to even notice, but in a car park, while turning, or stopped at a school crossing, the brake's ability to overcome the engine are largely irrelevant since you won't be expecting it.
- alistairSH 11y ago
  Agreed. Modern cars, even the modest ones, are fast enough that they can get out of control very quickly. While the brakes certainly can slow a vehicle with its throttle stuck open, the real question is what impact does that stuck throttle have on the average driver? When the brake doesn't work as expected, does the average driver continue to brake? Do they pump the brake pedal? Something else altogether? How long does it take them to regain composure and act sensibly (in this case, putting the car in neutral while continuing to brake aggressively)? If that slowed reaction is more than some fraction of a second, accidents will happen.

dmethvin 11y ago

In this particular case, 150-foot skid marks indicate that the driver was trying pretty hard to stop. No doubt there are accelerator-brake confusions in many of these cases, especially with older drivers. I'm really hesitant to say they all are in that category. Investigators need more "black box" info to see, for example, whether the accelerator and/or brake were being pressed in the seconds before an accident.