Seen it in dozens of movies where breaks fail or have been tampered with, car accelerating, etc.

Do not understand why the gears are not used to slow down, engine turned off, partially crash into softer objects, hand brakes, you name it. Why do drivers try to keep goings?

Sorry if this is a really stupid question.
A bus that lost the use of the driving wheel just crashed into a bus stop and killed 2 and injured a bunch of people but it was instantly, not exactly the situation i’m asking about but raised my curiosity.

In the bus case, driver had no time to react. Driving wheel was shown to turn freely, disconnected from the rest of the bus.

I’m a stick driver and i guess i would try to use the gear box to slow down till i could engage hand break and or crash /rub the sides of the car against a wall.

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Because the majority of people have never been taught, lack common sense, and go straight into panic mode.

More like, people doing sensible things does not lead to interesting plot development.

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Originally posted by a1abdj:
Because the majority of people have never been taught, lack common sense, and go straight into panic mode.

It is tremendously easy, sitting in the comfort of one’s living room armchair, to know what others should have done in a situation. This applies to televised sports games (hence the term Monday morning quarterback), movies, etc. Heck, when Toyota had their sticking throttle problems, many of us wondered why folks didn’t shift into neutral and shut the engine off.

There is a line (that I’m sure I’ll mangle) that goes something like, “The body cannot go in the game where the mind has not already gone in practice.”

Folks who have never considered a large array of things that could go wrong and how they might respond in those circumstances have the disadvantage of trying to figure things out in the higher logical reasoning portion of the brain when they are stuck “operating” (or trying to) in fight or flight mode way down in the limbic system.

With the bus situation, there had to be some disbelief that the steering system that had worked in every vehicle that the individual had ever driven wasn’t working. One would have to get unstuck from considering that and focus on, “What *do* I have?” (Brakes, gears, engine). There may simply not have been enough time to do that, even for someone with amazing reflexes.

As far as movies, those are all fantasy and everything that happens is scripted to serve whatever end they are shooting for. You may have folks blowing totally obvious things they should have known and other folks pulling off pure genius, realistically impossible, stunts because that’s what the movie makers wish to portray. Movies are not anything like reality and any resemblance to reality is purely coincidental.

Panic and loss of focus in the moment. Been there done that when racing motorcycles and the throttle sticks wide open and you are in the moment. You forget what to do and I raced at the very top level for a year so the talent was there.

Artistic license.
Let the viewers imagination take over from there.

I had a 1987 Chevy Beretta company car at one time. When I tried to disengage the cruise control the throttle stuck. The brakes would not hold it back and it was difficult to shift into a lower automatic gear. If the key was turned off the steering wheel would lock. I was finally able to slow it down enough to pull over to the shouder and hold the steering straight then turn off the ignition.

A) I’ve had to use a hand brake to slow down before. Wasn’t really very strong/my other option was to drag the car on the side of the cut along the hill, but I had a decent amount of track time at that point, so I wasn’t completely new to cars being out of control.

B) Automatics cannot be forced into a lower gear, TMK.

C) Speed and time and whether or not they had a plan for what to do in various situations, and some people freeze in times of acute stress, others function during it, and have the emotional crash after.

Stop the bus all you need to do is pop the airbrakes.

People these days probably never had the opportunity to drive a shitbox as a teen/young adult and it shows. I did and while it may have risked my life as a young man, it's made me have good reaction time and be creative. haha.

One sticks out in my memory a long time ago. Mid to late 60’s Chevrolet engine mounts would break, engine would lift under acceleration and could pull the accelerator linkage to wide open throttle. There was a massive recall to replace motor mounts if broken and a restraint cable kit to add in other cases.

I was test driving a 65 Impala convertible at work, a 327 four speed when it happened to me. When I let off the accelerator to shift first to second the accelerator was stuck on the floor. I turned the ignition off,engine dropped back on the motor mounts (more or less) with limited accelerator movement as the linkage was now out of whack. Took it back and told the used car manager “I think I’ll pass on this one but you better get it into the shop for motor mounts”.

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I’m a stick driver

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So you have a theft proof car. Awesome. I approve. Most people here can NOT drive a clutch manual transmission. Even Valet parking attendants can’t move a manual trans car.
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I've lost brakes almost completely on four occasions. Two because of old junk, the other two a design failure they fixed later. All scary at the moment, but clear thinking an luck turned them into no big deal.

Had a car lose it's shift linkage, didn't know this till pulling into an uphill driveway. Parking brake didn't work in the car and I couldn't put it in park, so I couldn't get out. lol I finally thought of something I could jump out, grab and quickly put behind the wheel. It mostly worked. lol

There's a large hill a few miles away, years ago my father was coming down it in the F750 we had, hit a bump and the inner steering shaft snapped. Wheel went round and round. He got incredibly lucky that it stayed in his lane most of the way down, only veering off the road to the right at the very bottom. My dad is the antithasis of a lucky person, but he had it that day.

quote:

Originally posted by Aglifter:
A) I’ve had to use a hand brake to slow down before. Wasn’t really very strong/my other option was to drag the car on the side of the cut along the hill, but I had a decent amount of track time at that point, so I wasn’t completely new to cars being out of control.

B) Automatics cannot be forced into a lower gear, TMK.
C) Speed and time and whether or not they had a plan for what to do in various situations, and some people freeze in times of acute stress, others function during it, and have the emotional crash after.

Cousin Phil set up my C6 with a manual low in the valve body. He included a warning to NOT shift to low going too fast. That was a nice solid C6 build.

Edited for brevity, but this is a really good post.

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posted by slosig: There is a line (that I’m sure I’ll mangle) that goes something like, “The body cannot go in the game where the mind has not already gone in practice.”

Alluded to in this thread, where everybody wondered why the school bus driver, caught in the middle of a shootout, froze in place and didn't drive the bus away.

As for "the steering will lock up if you turn the ignition key off," no car built in the last ~25 years allows the key to be turned all the way to off/steering locked unless shifted to park (if automatic transmission). I'm not sure what these new-fangled push-button/"nanny" cars would do. Also with automatics, if any speed at all is built up, the parking pawl will just skip over the teeth (making an awful racket) and won't do anything to stop the car.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: egregore,

quote:

Originally posted by Hamden106:

quote:

Originally posted by Aglifter:
B) Automatics cannot be forced into a lower gear, TMK.

Cousin Phil set up my C6 with a manual low in the valve body. He included a warning to NOT shift to low going too fast.

A friend of mine somehow forced his transmission into reverse while driving and instantly blew the transmission apart.

I have been on many accident scenes where everything functioned as it should but some people drive with both feet and they have an automatic tranny. Had one older lady jacked up her brand new Camry up and over one of the store's concrete posts and flipped it onto it's side. The only way we could get her out was buy cutting the roof off. She's lucky she didn't kill anyone.

quote:

Originally posted by Aglifter:
B) Automatics cannot be forced into a lower gear, TMK.

I can’t think of an automatic I’ve had that couldn’t be shifted into a lower gear. The Explorer and C7 have paddle shifters. With the Beetle, I move the shifter to the right from D and flick it forward for an up shift and backwards for a downshift. My F350 has a toggle switch on the stalk that lets my shift gears. The BMW Z3 had something similar to the Beetle. I’m fairly sure the TH400s in the 78 CJ7 and 79 Olds 98 could be shifted from D to 2 or 1. The 69 Corvair only had two speeds to begin with. There’s another dozen or so cars and pickups in there, but they’d be repeats of vehicles I’ve already mentioned.

They all have a selector to do so, but I don’t think it can be forced until the speed is low enough to let it down shift.

(A manual can be changed, regardless, TMK. Might hit the rev limiter, but it can be forced down. I don’t think an automatic will do that.)