How safe is it, really?

On Wed, 01 Dec 2004 00:04:13 GMT, Judah wrote:

Some years back, Audi was sued because
of failures related to their accelerator and brakes that led to fatalities.

My recollection of this was that Audi was found to be blameless in
terms of "unintended acceleration". In every single car tested, no
matter how hard anyone stomped on the accelerator, the brakes held it
in place. In other words, no audi engine could move the car if the
brakes were applied.

So in those vehicals in which the alleged "unintended acceleration"
occured, what actually was happening? The owners were stepping on the
accelerator, not the brake pedal.

How could this be? Like many european cars Audi arranged the brake
and accelerator pedal close together and at the same height so that
the driver could easily transition from one to the other. So there
was not much space between the two. Plus, the wheel well intruded
somewhat so that both pedals were displaced to the right more so than
most american drivers were used to. I know, you'd think that this
would mean that drivers would more likely mistake the brake pedal for
the accelerator but it was cited as a factor.

Many of the car magazines did extensive testing to see if they could
either duplicate the situation or find out why it was happening.

Stepping on the gas when you intended to step on the brakes is
something seniors do all the time, and they aren't often in Audi's.
To them when it's happening, they think they are stepping on the
brake, because that's what they thought they had done. So they cannot
react quickly enough to remove their foot from the gas to the brake
before bad things happen.

Corky Scott