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Everyone has lots of advice and it may work, but when it happened to me with my 2year old niece in the car all I did was panic.
Turn off the ignition? Never occurred to me
Pull the e brake? Never occurred to me
Shift into neutral? Never occurred to me
It was rush hour on the freeway. All I could do is honk and steer around cars. And pray and cry. Even reading through the advice here brings back quite a bit of panic. I knew the power steering would go out for sure if I lost any power and it was a bear to drive that old station wagon without it. Course now people know more about it and might have a thought to be able to try something recommended here.
But when one panics all reason is tossed out the window. Hope you don’t ever experience it.
OK, it never occured to you to try and stop the car. That is a driver issue, not a vehicle issue.
OK, it never occured to you to try and stop the car. That is a driver issue, not a vehicle issue.
I'm not sure the car would stop if you were able to push the shift into neutral, would it? Since a car in neutral will continue rolling if it's being accelerated, which this car was. But if you can turn off the ignition in neutral, then that should work.
In his pricey car, I guess he had buttons, and not a key and gear shift. I don't know how the buttons work.
Remember, though, that he had both hands tightly on the wheel, trying to avoid hitting other cars on the hwy. But then again, he was able to call 911. So ????
Newer BMWs don't have a traditional parking brake that would have helped slow it down.
I may not be following you on this.
I have a 2017 and it has the e-brake lever to the right of the driver's seat that you can pull up, which was different than my last car, an Audi, where the e-brake was basically a button you could push. Unless you mean the pedal e-brake? Then no, Bimmers don't have these (at least the ones I've been in).
I couldn't clearly tell by that first screenshot, but his Bimmer looked to be 2012-2015ish, and an X, however I'm not familiar with BMW SUVs.
This sounds odd. The comments keep mentioning to turn off the ignition, is that possible in such situations?
I get it that a gas pedal being stuck is a horrifying situation and you never know how you would react. A family died years ago when something similar happened to a Prius they we're driving.
Anyone remember the car here that had the same thing happen? I believe it was a Toyota. Road ended, all died.
I don't think that's a fair comparison. The BMW driver seems oddly suspicious because his actions and logic do not add up. He avoided the first set of spike strips, his response to the dispatch was nonsensical, and it appears that he did not attempt to stop the vehicle. We will have to wait and see what the investigation reveals, but my money is on the driver's account not being accurate.
Unless the safety override system does not work as designed. Things break.
Be interesting to see what they find out about the car.
You're right. We need to wait for an investigation to report their findings. Right now, it is extremely more likely that the driver's action and judgment were compromised. It seems odd that the driver didn't shift the vehicle out of gear, properly applied the brakes, even attempt to use the parking brake, refused to turn the engine off, had very odd responses/excuses for dispatch, and avoided the first set of spike strips. When you add it all up, it just more likely that the driver did not do something right.
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