Abstract
“Unintended-acceleration” automobile accidents typically begin when the driver first enters the car, starts the engine, and intends to press his/her right foot on the brake while shifting from Park to a drive gear (Drive or Reverse). The driver reports an unintended (uncommanded) full-throttle acceleration, coupled with a loss of braking, until the episode ends in a crash. Pedal misapplications – where the right foot contacts the accelerator instead of the brake that was intended – have been linked to these accidents (Schmidt, 1989, 1993) which, in the 1980s, were thought to occur only at the start of a driving cycle (and/or with the car in Park). But, in 1997, we identified over 200 pedal errors as the cause of accidents reported in the North Carolina database; these crashes occurred during the driving cycle (Schmidt et al., 1997), and/or with the vehicle in a gear other than Park. Our present work provides a more thorough analysis of these North Carolina Police Accident Reports from 1979 to 1995. The vast majority of pedal misapplications (over 92%) (a) occurred during the driving cycle, (b) were generally in “unhurried” conditions, and (c) were categorically separate from those events referred to as unintended-acceleration episodes at start-up. These ideas are explanatory for the recent (2009–2010) surge of unintended-acceleration reports, perhaps even suggesting that all of these crashes are caused by pedal errors, and that none of them are based on some vehicle defect(s).
Highlights
The term “unintended acceleration” (UA – sometimes called “sudden acceleration”) was coined in the 1980s to describe a type of automobile accident that was attracting considerable attention at the time
Our keyword evaluation of these narrative statements produced two different searches: one for recognized and/or admitted pedal errors, and a second for NHTSAdefined UA episodes where the driver stated that his/her right foot was on the brake, and was not on the accelerator
In order to find National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)-defined UA events, we reviewed the pedal-error accidents identified in this later study to determine if any of these cases could be construed as an NHTSA-defined “unintended-acceleration” event, where a driver (a) shifts from Park to either Drive or Reverse at the start of a driving cycle, (b) incurs a sudden and unexpected vehicle acceleration, (c) reports a perceived failure of the brakes, and (d) reports a malfunction of the throttle or accelerator pedal
Summary
The term “unintended acceleration” (UA – sometimes called “sudden acceleration”) was coined in the 1980s to describe a type of automobile accident that was attracting considerable attention at the time. In these episodes, the driver would report that, as he/ she was initiating a driving cycle, after starting the engine, placing the right foot lightly on the brake (to prevent the car from “creeping”), and shifting from Park to a drive gear (usually Park or Reverse, depending on the situation), the vehicle would go to an uncommanded (i.e., unintended) wide-open-throttle condition, coupled with an apparent loss of braking effectiveness (Pollard and Sussman, 1989; Reinhart, 1989; Schmidt, 1989, 1993). This naturally resulted in considerable publicity (e.g., newspaper and magazine articles, and even a “60 Minutes” television report; CBS, 1986) and substantial public awareness
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