Saturday, March 11, 2006
ACCELERATOR, BRAIN JAMMED
British motorist Kevin Nicolle panics following an unrequested momentum surplus:
A motorist was trapped in his car driving at almost 130mph for 60 miles after the accelerator jammed.
Kevin Nicolle, 25, was unable to stop the automatic BMW going at top speed after the malfunction on the A1.
His terrifying journey, which was followed by four police cars and a helicopter, ended when he smashed the car into a roundabout, flipping it on its roof.
“I had been driving for quite a while when I realised the accelerator pedal was stuck down,” he said. “I had gone into the fast lane and I couldn’t get the pedal off the floor. I used my hands-free phone and tried the AA to ask them what to do.
“At that point I wasn’t panicking because I jammed my foot on the brake and that was keeping the speed to a steady 70mph.”
Does not compute. One solid, grind-pads-to-the-metal application should have hauled that little BMW to a stop, or at least stalled it if he’d shifted to top gear beforehand.
“My brakes were burning out and starting to fail - that’s when the speed really started to build,” he said. “I could see the speed building to 120mph or 130mph. I remember starting to shake and freeze up. I was really panicking and broke into tears. I couldn’t help it because I thought I was definitely going to die.
“I was trying to slip the car into neutral but because the car was over-revving and red-lining I couldn’t do it.”
I suspect he means he wouldn’t do it, for fear of detonating the engine. It sounds as though he may have actually got the thing into neutral—it wouldn’t have over-revved otherwise—then put it back into drive after being alarmed by the extreme revs.
“I couldn’t turn off the ignition because it would have disabled the power steering and made it even more dangerous.”
Nonsense. He’s on the AI; not a great deal of steering is required. He’d have simply coasted to a stop, even with toasted brakes.
“I didn’t deliberately try to crash the car to stop myself. I remember saying to the fireman, ‘Don’t cut my car, you’ll damage it’.”
The engine-preserving theory gains credibility. This chap’s priorities—save the car! At all costs, save the car!—seem a little peculiar. In any case, should you ever find yourself in a similar situation, here’s what to do:
* Dump it into neutral, hit the verge, and brake to a halt. Your brakes will only be working against the car’s weight and velocity, but not its engine. Turn off the ignition once you’re at a speed sufficiently reduced to cope with a lack of power steering, should that be a concern.