On Mar 2, 11:43*am, wrote:
On Mar 2, 7:01*am, DerbyDad03 wrote:

On Mar 2, 5:55*am, "Ed Pawlowski" wrote:

"mm" wrote

Yes. And some of them won't turn off either, some of the ones with no
keyhole.
You have to hold the button for something like three seconds. *That sounds
like a very long time if you are accelerating in traffic.

Apply brakes, shift into neutral.

No more acceleration.

Do you know for sure how the shift mechanism works on all these cars?

No, I don't know for sure, and I'm assuming you don't either. So I
guess it's open for discussion.

The throttle is fly by wire, what makes you so sure there isn't
something similar for the tranny that could block it from being moved
into certain positions under certain conditions? *

That even seems desirable, does it not?

Not in all instances.

Like preventing it from being moved into park while it's moving?

While I *might* not want to be able to put a tranny in park while it's
moving, I would most certainly want to be able to put it in neutral
for the very reason this "snow on the roof" thread has continued for
so long.

If my throttle got stuck, whether by a floor mat, an electronic fault,
a driver having a heart attack or a car jacker with a death wish, I'd
be really ****ed if I couldn't pop it into neutral in an attempt to
keep myself alive.


As for the 3 seconds to shut the engine off via the starting button on
the Lexus, that is indeed the case. * And it's worse than that it
could take 3 seconds while roaring down the highway. * Who would know
that it takes 3 seconds and hold the button in for that long?
Apparently it takes 3 secs while the car is moving, which is not the
normal shut-down sequence you would experience everyday. * In fact,
you'd most likely only experience it when something was seriously
wrong. * And then it would seem more likely many people would continue
to push the button again and again instead of just holding it in. * To
top it off, the Lexus was a rental, so the driver had no familiarity
with it.

I'm quite amazed at how people want to just attribute this to driver
stupidity. *

Just so ya know, I'm neither in that group nor not in that group. I
place no blame because I don't know what happened because I wasn't
there when it happened to any of them. All I know is what I think I
would do if I found myself in that situation. Brake first, neutral
next, shut it off I had to.

The only experience I *can* speak from is with my 1980 Mustang. A
faulty control module would occasionally shut the car down. The first
time it happened, I was traveling at 70 mph in the left lane of a
highway and all the gauges dropped to zero. I said to myself "That's
weird!" and calmly put the car into neutral, turned the key to restart
it, put it back into drive and continued on down the highway. Granted,
there was no need to panic since I wasn't accelerating, but my point
is that it wasn't that tough to quickly figure out what to try. I'm
pretty sure that some drivers would have freaked out and tried to
coast to the side of highway, possibly causing an accident as they
slowed down. I'd like to think that if my accelerator got stuck, I'd
handle it a similarly calm fashion.


In the famous Lexus case the driver was an experienced CA
highway patrol officer who had taken special driving training as part
of his job. *I'd be pretty amazed if he didn't try to put the car in
neutral.