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Comment by techiferous | Hacker News Reader

By the way, what's so scary about a gas pedal getting stuck? Can't you just put the car in neutral?

Some people respond poorly in emergencies. The fight-or-flight response causes their brains to lock up and they freak out, instead of making rational decisions. They'll burn out the breaks trying to break normally, for example, or just do nothing until they run into something. Even though in such a situation any combination of fully breaking, shutting off the engine, picking the accelerator pedal up with the edge of your shoe, using the emergency brake, or shifting into neutral would probably be more than sufficient.

Thing is, just jamming on the brakes will stop your car, every time. Your brakes are much more powerful than your accelerator. The problem is when a driver thinks their foot is on the brake, when it is actually on the accelerator. So mashing their foot to the ground just exacerbates (i.e. causes in the first place) the problem.

The panic response is very difficult to overcome.

Indeed, that was the first thing I listed. In an emergency you should condition yourself to jam on the brakes. That will stop the car, even if the accelerator is running.

However, some people will try to apply the brakes gradually (as you would when coming to a stop normally). And in that case the brakes won't respond as one might expect. If the brakes don't seem to work, push harder until they do.

Also, if you use your brakes to slow down with a stuck accelerator but not stop you can wear out your break pads fairly quickly at 60 mph. At which point you're SOL.

EDIT: Reading a comment farther down, I'm reminded that this is a matter of the copper pads getting too hot rather than wearing away. Same effect though.

I've done it once...went for the brake, my foot was at an awkward angle, slipped, and got my foot pressed down on the accelerator and the toe jammed under the brake pedal.

Logically, all I needed to do was take a deep breath and move my foot sideways, but all I could think about was pulling up, which of course only exacerbated the problem.

It's not easy to think rationally when you are driving a car with several people accelerating when it should be breaking...and in the case of the linked story, it's not easy to accept blame either.

This has been discussed extensively on car forums, and motorcycle forums as well. You can:

- Shut off the engine

- Put it in neutral

- Stand on the brakes (all but the most souped-up aftermarket monsters will have brakes that are stronger than the engine. Please note, STAND ON THEM. If you drag them lightly, you run a higher risk of overheating them, rendering them useless)

- Use the emergency brake

- Use the clutch (if it's a stick)

- Pull all large fuses from fuse box

- Induce a spin

- Drive the side of the car into something like a divider to scrub speed

- Run into the back of another car traveling close to your speed. They will likely slow down, slowing you down.

In short, there's a whole lot of things you can try. People just don't always know very much about driving/cars, or don't think well while panicking.

Nice list. Shouldn't you be careful about shutting off the engine, though? Won't that lock the steering wheel?

I think not, since I've shut down the engine a few times in a long downhill on an empty but curvy road and been able to steer. The steering and braking assists (not sure what they're called in English) won't work though. Maybe if you turn the key all the way to off, putting out all the electronics etc. you might lock the steering.

No, you won't. Try moving the steering wheel in a parked car.

I had this happen to me once. If you're on the highway, yeah, sure; you have nothing but time to react.

When it happened to me, I was in a parking lot. The pedal was accidentally pushed past a fold in the floor mat, which caught it and pushed it down. I was hurtling toward the curb in a small parking lot -- the car was a Mitsubishi 3000GT VR-4. It was scary. Very scary. Even knowing it was a stick shift, and all I had to do was press the clutch and listen to my poor engine ping the rev limiter while I figured out what happened.

I can imagine a lot of circumstances where this would be worse. Imagine if it happened in a school zone, unexpectedly. Imagine if it happened while you were parking.

I think that's part of the reason that we haven't really heard as much about it -- we hear about the catastrophic ones, or the higher profile ones, but the majority of cases probably weren't dire.

The gas pedal getting "stuck" is a result of the scary, not the cause.

About to hit something unexpectedly->slam foot down on wrong pedal->omg the car accelerated when it should have stopped!

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