TV1 news. Old person was supposed to be reversing and drives forwards right through a DVD shop front, knocks over the DVD racks, narrowly missing killing a couple of kids.
No evidence of driver ever hitting the brake. Sorry, this person needs banning from driving - right now.
Yes. I agree. Today it is foot on the wrong pedal, next it will be car in wrong lane, then it will be "oh I did not see the school bus, i had the wrong glasses on". I hope the police or his/her family suggest that it is time to give up driving, before someone is killed.
gunhand,
Sep 22, 4:52pm
Odd, there is a 62 comments on a thread of "accidents I have caused" just down a bit in this section. Maybe they all should be banned as well from driving? Or is youth an excuse? But age is not?
intrade,
Sep 22, 4:54pm
i seen the video. the throttle was wide open by the ammount the tyres where spinning .So lets say they where to reverse, No one absolute no one floors the accelerater to the floor when reversing. I would be more inclined to say that car self accelerated . pile of crap citroen done that to me lucky for me the friggen lever was in neutral not drive.
EVERY person no matter how old reverses slowly. So this is bullox all over wrong pedal my ass the car drove it self thru the window i bet on it
esky-tastic,
Sep 22, 5:24pm
Old people (and some not so old!) sometimes have their foot slip off the brake pedal onto the accelerator and then the car surges forwards - so they push even harder on the 'brake' pedal and the car REALLY takes off!
socram,
Sep 22, 5:26pm
I haven't read that thread, but the difference is usually that those who admit to causing an accident, don't have the reaction time of a hibernating sloth, they made a poor choice, which they usually admit to.
The wheels on that car were still turning when it bowled over the DVD rack when I presume the car stalled.
I've had my SuperGold card for a while now, but on the rare occasions when I have selected the wrong gear, I have travelled less than 100mm before the mistake has been found and rectified. By the looks of that security video, it is nearer 10m and from a standstill, that scares me. A lot. It scares me because Glenfield is next door and that driver may be at it again - and it could be my grandchildren in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Don't panic, they will look into what happened and if deemed necessary they will remove her license. And till we know what happened we shouldn't judge. But no doubt what we think may have occurred. And plenty of younger people smash into all manner of things all the bloody time. I don't think any of us are immune to the odd pho pa. It's just how it turns out that makes a difference at times. A mate of mine a few years back (perfect driving record and also in charge of an emergency vehicle at times, was driving there own car one day when got a bit of a headache, felt odd started to pull over but blacked out and just hit a curb and stopped. Turned out he had a brain tumor. Now had this happened at another time or place it could have been very nasty. Shit happens.
saxman99,
Sep 22, 5:36pm
Turn the key off?
tamarillo,
Sep 22, 6:09pm
Rubbish. That's like motorcyclist who say no one ever target fixates and rides into the tree/gully/big thing they meant to avoid. And ok, you don't like citreons, but millions do and have no problem with them.
melonhead1,
Sep 22, 6:13pm
Score one for the manual transmission. Not only do you have to move the lever in a different direction(if not, you have to think about it more than an auto) to get to reverse, but you'd likely stall it when your alarmed at going the wrong way.
tamarillo,
Sep 22, 6:32pm
Off topic but sad the citreon dealer doesn't know what kind of gearbox it is! Psa don't use cvt, it's a 6 speed auto.
marte,
Sep 22, 10:19pm
I was pissed off that visitors would park up the driveway of my flat. I had flatmates who lived there and its their flat too. Visitors can park on the road.
But, this guy, to peeve me off, did once. My flatmate had a friend staying, with a young child too, important.
So I told him to bugger off, don't park on the property. So he backs out, fast, to piss me off. ha. He misstakes brake pedal, hits gas, gets right rear wheel over edge of drive into garden, over front door step, right front wheel now into garden, overcorrects, hits tree with left rear bumper corner, crumples it in, right front corner swings right into side of house, crumples right front guard up.
I hear this 'Smash bang Rev squeal Bash grind crunch' and walk out to find car at 45 deg in driveway. After checking the childs OK.
I go out and have a good laugh, he could have did a 'U turn' at the end of the driveway. Hes real pissed. I laugh even more. Now hes got to fix the house weatherboards.
So he leaves absolutely fuming.
Drives home, on the way some shorted out wiring catches fire and burns out one corner of his restored and remotored Morris minor.
"Told yah not to"
saxman99,
Sep 23, 2:47am
Sure, but I was talking about the Toyotas you linked to.
lk104,
Sep 23, 10:36am
Relevant - NOT!
swfc1867,
Sep 23, 10:43am
I'd like to know how many of these kinds of incidents are caused by autos vs manuals.
cjdnzl,
Sep 23, 10:47am
A clear case of 'right-foot confusion' here. Left-foot braking when manoeuvering would have avoided all this drama.
kevymtnz,
Sep 23, 11:01am
nice one
quickbuck,
Sep 23, 11:25am
Indeed. At least in a manual your foot is actually covering a big lever that disconnects the motor from the rest of the power train. Or at least should be!
Ban Autos I say.
A workmate jumped his fly by wire auto over the edge of a car park at work on a cold morning. He clamed that the engine reved all by itself while in Drive. Could well be true! He didn't think of moving the big lever in the middle of the car as we are taught to never leave your hands on that when driving. BUT I know for sure I was taught to always have the pedals covered for each situation. Clutch almost always, and brake whenever slowing. So, even if my Fly by Wire car did the same trick, I could disenguage the clutch and stop the car in an instant. The engine would give a fair roar, but it wouldn''t be followed by the horrible crunch.
socram,
Sep 23, 11:33am
We have auto and manual cars. Gear change layout on the manuals are all different - older ones, the reverse isn't always easy to engage - or too easy - but regardless, reaction time (or lack of it) is still the critical issue wen you do get it wrong.
I don't know of any small car where hitting the brake wouldn't stop it dead within a foot or two, even if still in gear from a standing start. If you can't hit the brake pedal within a second - which is one hell of a long time, when most people could do it in under half a second, you need confining to a mobility scooter.
In the case we are talking about, the driver was shown being helped out of the car and had not collapsed.
Remember that Denny Hulme had his fatal heart attack at Bathhurst yet still managed to steer the car to safety, from 200kph+. We know that some people do have blackouts, but I'd be very surprised indeed that if in this incident, there was a medical issue. Sadly, we may never hear any more about it, so we might never know the truth, so we can only guess.
rosehonda,
Sep 24, 5:38am
+1 ban autos and make everyone real drivers haha. As much as I would want that to happen I don't see it happening.
These wrong pedal shop drive ins do seem to be happening often and probably don't always hit mainstream media. I know a local shopping centre has had 4 separate instances in the past few years. They always seem to be elderly drivers. It seems hard to understand how they can mix up the pedals. The only thing I can imagine is they get confused and panic by the 'auto acceleration' of some automatics. Having the car accelerate to about 10km/h when you release the brake without touching the gas pedal is a weird sensation and I don't see the point of it?
I wonder if they have recently upgraded their car and are not familiar with this. Even then you think they would stop before being completely in the shop so probably just incompetent.
socram,
Sep 24, 7:30am
I used to be totally against autos, but as we now spend about 20% of our on road time either stuck in traffic or more often than not, at traffic lights, I'm happy to say that it sure beats the hell out of wearing out clutches.
On ours, you have to put your foot on the brake to start it anyway, so it isn't exactly easy to go far in the wrong gear, as the natural method, especially when parked, is to let your foot off the brake slowly once in drive/reverse.
I hate to say this, but the majority of reported instances seem to be female drivers - and not all were old.
skully13,
Sep 24, 12:00pm
I am teaching the wife to drive. I noticed that she had/has a habit of, when backing out of the driveway or carpark her foot moves over the accelerator and not the brake pedal. I had to stop her from doing it, by telling her by doing that, when things go bad, her reaction is going to be to foot down onto the pedal.
marte,
Sep 24, 2:19pm
Don't teach people how to drive. They have licensed driving instructors who know how to do that. All you are going to do is teach her all your bad mistakes.
Get a driving instructor to teach her and then get her to teach you.
By the way, do you cross your wrists?
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