Say goodbye to left foot braking -- courtesy of the govt

Chuck Branscomb · **Posted:** Fri Apr 13, 2012 11:27 am

Coming soon to all new cars: http://www.autoblog.com/2012/04/12/nhtsa-wants-brake-throttle-override-systems-added-to-official-sa/

RodneyWright · **Posted:** Fri Apr 13, 2012 11:37 am

That's what we need, more needed government support for stupid drivers. I think I'm to the point where I'm not buying anything older than a '95. Time to buy some old school that I've wanted over the years, Porsche, Karman Ghia, Alpha, 'vette..... and just keep the mustang for now. I like that mustang due to the complete lack of nannism's, no auto head lights, no auto locking doors and so on.

RobLupella · **Posted:** Fri Apr 13, 2012 12:06 pm

We spend billions of dollars on trying to engineer out stupid instead of investing in better driver training/monitoring etc that would solve much of the problem the billions are attempting to fix.

Hell, they would spend less on public transportation to get the nuts off the road and onto busses, trains, and commuter vans and leave the road free for me to lfb around a corner.

Pete Guthrie · **Posted:** Fri Apr 13, 2012 2:34 pm

i pretty much hate everyone when i drive anyway.people cant drive anything, because they are busy putting on makeup, running from drug busts, and drinking crystal meth to be bothered to drive. :lol:

George Bright · **Posted:** Fri Apr 13, 2012 2:39 pm

Pete Guthrie · **Posted:** Fri Apr 13, 2012 2:45 pm

George, you know my sister said something like that. knowing me, i cant afford something really new anyway.

Donnie Barnes · **Posted:** Fri Apr 13, 2012 4:30 pm

When it comes to govt regulation, it is a numbers game. As in what will it do to the accident and death statistics.

There should be a litmus test, though. I mean if you were to regulate the COLOR of cars, people would go apeshit and it wouldn't happen. But the reality is that if we DID make all cars neon orange, a LOT of accidents would be avoided. There are published numbers now on what car colors are the most likely to be in an accident, and it's the neutral stuff that doesn't stand out against the road and typical background colors. My wife actually makes sure and filters out those colors when she's choosing her new car color.

Now, IMHO, that's a reasonable litmus test. If we're not willing to regulate car colors to save lives, we shouldn't regulate ANYTHING that will save FEWER lives than regulating car colors would. And I'll bet dollars to donuts that it would be pretty easy to show this brake thing won't save nearly as many lives. JMHO.

--Donnie

Pete Guthrie · **Posted:** Fri Apr 13, 2012 4:33 pm

in my opinion fun stopped with hybrid cars. Just go with bio diesel and we will be fine. next, cars will be afraid of their own shadows now. so that cars cant do anything right..

ColinOConnell · **Posted:** Fri Apr 13, 2012 5:35 pm

The real problem with all of this safety equipment in cars is that the idiots aren't being culled from the herd as efficiently. They're back out there the next day and then we have to deal with them in our daily lives. :twisted:

RobLupella · **Posted:** Fri Apr 13, 2012 9:48 pm

ColinOConnell wrote:

The real problem with all of this safety equipment in cars is that the idiots aren't being culled from the herd as efficiently. They're back out there the next day and then we have to deal with them in our daily lives. :twisted:

And unfortunately sometimes they cull us

Douglas Eshenbaugh · **Posted:** Fri Apr 13, 2012 10:18 pm

I'm almost sure that the moment this comes out there will be some sort of work around for it. Remember necessity is the mother of invention. The question will be is how will the rule books handle such work around in the more restrictive classes if this does come to pass.

DickRasmussen · **Posted:** Sat Apr 14, 2012 7:26 am

Before "doom and gloom" takes over remember that starting before many of you were born, let alone driving, the "government" has imposed MANY safety, emission, child seat, fuel mileage, and highway safety standards. Overall, I would say cars and driving are much better from an enthusiast's perspective than they were in the 60's when I started driving.

FYI the biggest distractions "impacting" our safety and aggravation levels that weren't present back in the day are cell/smartphones and various entertainment devices . . . none of which were government imposed. :lol:

Dick

Chuck Branscomb · **Posted:** Sat Apr 14, 2012 9:26 am

The NHTSA says there are about 15 pedal misapplication events per month. For those 15/month, they are going to impose cost on hundreds of millions of people. Note those are not 15 deaths/month or anything close to that. This is essentially a non-event, statistically given the number of vehicle miles driven per year per person in this country. It is a profound waste of taxpayer resources for this agency apparently looking to scapegoat a previously emotionally charged situation. Note that in the majority of pedal misapplication events where a car goes careening out of control, killing people, etc, the driver makes an initial wrong choice (hits accelerator pedal) and just keeps it pressed as hard as they can until the car is stopped by a hard object. Hence it is unlikely that this "fix" will have any affect on the actual "situation" it is supposed to prevent.

Oh, yeah, Dick, I was around for many of the safety regulations you mention (born in 1959), however, this particular regulation actually has an almost zero return but will cost many, many millions of dollars. It has no comparison to other items you mention.

Jason Mauldin · **Posted:** Sat Apr 14, 2012 10:23 am

While I don't agree with this change, I think the cost will be very minimal. This is only a couple extra lines of code in most vehicles these days. The computer already has control of the throttle body and already has the brake input going to it as well.

Chuck Branscomb · **Posted:** Sat Apr 14, 2012 1:25 pm

Jason Mauldin wrote:

While I don't agree with this change, I think the cost will be very minimal. This is only a couple extra lines of code in most vehicles these days. The computer already has control of the throttle body and already has the brake input going to it as well.

It's all relative. Once you make programming changes, regression test it, etc, multiply that times the number of different models/engines/etc and for every manufacturer, it's not a trivial expense. The savings side of the equation is almost zero, so the cost/savings ratio is a humongous number.

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Say goodbye to left foot braking -- courtesy of the govt

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