I know this is very off-topic but don't beat yourself up about making quick decisions like this that cut that kind of persistent, simmering rage out of your life.
We have enough of this stuff with people in our lives, often unavoidably, so letting appliances/devices/products cause it is not something we have to tolerate. If a _thing_ makes you feel unsatisfiable anger, get rid of it.
I couldn't get on with the thing, but I felt bad about selling it to anyone because the resonator was more trouble than it was worth. Some frustrations should not be sold on.
So I kept the very nice guitar case, and gave the guitar away to a talented, broke musician, who used its rather scratchy, broken sound for effect on a couple of recordings.
I could have sold it for a few quid but I have never regretted this; I turned my frustration at this thing into a gift and a bit of joy for someone else and then moved on.
Not something I'd recommend everyone does regularly, because if we all do it, it just prolongs poor product design by failing to reject it, but it helped this one time.
(It also taught me an important lesson about musical instruments; the next guitar I bought was better, but more basic in appearance and already scratched from the shop.)
Isn't the correct term "vote with your wallet"? "voting with your feet" implies switching jobs or emigrating.
I had a similar experience and called an attorney, who explained that, in the U.S., you can really only sue for any actual loss (whether to the vehicle or to you). If you weren't injured or killed, and didn't suffer extreme anxiety or something like that, then you suffered no real loss and really have nothing to sue over (unfortunately). You can't sue for what might have happened, only for what actually did. (You probably could have sued, at least in small claims, for the loss of use, cost of repairs, decrease in value, etc, if you wanted to take the time.)
With that said, you might have been able to get them to take it back under your state's lemon law, if you hadn't already sold it, but the lemon laws generally only cover multiple defects over a period of time anyway. :(
I'm still on team "put computers into cars" for the long term benefit of ending routine automotive collisions but the medium term is frightening.
In both cases - aircraft and cars - the primary goal was reducing weight.
But this term is not intended to refer to driver-assistance features.
The part you're thinking of is the throttle (which is why the accelerator pedal is sometimes called the throttle pedal), which controls the flow of air into the engine.
The flow of gasoline has always been automated as a derived value from this (and often, other factors) -- even when engines were entirely mechanical; this was the function of the carburetor.
Some diesels use so called J-brakes which effectively function as throttle plates to induce engine braking, but they are exclusively for slowing down the vehicle.
That wikipedia article is a lot of unsourced nonsense written by complete idiots who clearly lack subject-area knowledge
The goal for drive-by-wire in cars was primarily emissions reduction. Many cars "smooth" throttle inputs to improve mileage and emissions. In some cars "eco" mode exaggerates that smoothing, or changes the mapping of the throttle to allow for much more control over a lower portion of the throttle range. In others, "drive" is smoothed, and "sport" mode is not (unfortunately "sport" mode often makes the transmission far too aggressive.)
It brings mechanical simplicity, because cruise control can be integrated in.
Drive by wire throttles were notoriously unreliable for almost a decade after their introduction. They get gummed up, the actuators fail, the position sensors fail, etc. It's a laugh that the article claims they're "easier to service" - they're usually buried in difficult-to-access places and there's nothing "serviceable" about them compared to a true mechanical throttle that can usually be completely rebuilt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoichiometry
If you don't do that then the excess fuel goes back out unburned. Multi point injection has changed this process a bit in that compared to the first single point injection systems the fuel is mixed with the air on a per-cylinder basis leading to better fuel economy and even more efficient combustion. This is also why these systems have air mass sensors, the amount of air is an important thing to measure in order to determine the right amount of fuel. Essentially fuel injection systems they have all of the complexity of a servo system, and the number of failure points compared to a direct linkage is huge, especially when you have a block that is split into two cylinder banks, V or Boxer.
Second time was in a bend, with a big sign on the far side of the bend (me on the inner lane). Same stuff. If there had been oncoming traffic I would have certainly hit it because the car became uncontrollable instantly.
Vision based computer systems really need the persistence and object recognition factors. A strong specialized faked intelligence might be sufficient, more so if it's less distracted than humans.
There isn't a whole lot of room on those bridges for evasive maneuvers either.
Now I'm going to assume that adding the 4WD option to your sedan isn't that good at increasing safety. Yeah, more driving wheels does improve control and will probably reduce fatalities. But from 28 dpm to 0 is going to also be attributable to statistical noise. (Case in point, IIHS' 2014 statistics have the 4WD version at 25, and the 2WD at 11).
Also note that the death rate is in terms of deaths per million registration years and only includes the driver of the car. So for the C-Class, which sold about 80k units in 2014, one driver death in a 3-year span would be a '4' on the rate. The intervals on this data are very wide, and every year relatively low-volume cars will score a '0' just by statistical chance.
[1] Or sedans and station wagons if you insist.