Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveThackery
Must have been absolutely horrifying!
I haven't understood why the cruise control failed to disengage. Pressing the brake pedal should disengage it. I wonder if the same fault that made the brakes fail also stopped the switch from working that disengaged the cruise control.
The brakes are dual circuit, so even if one circuit fails from a corroded pipe the other should still work. It does, though, increase the pedal travel a lot. Or maybe it was the servo that failed and the driver didn't, or couldn't, press the brake pedal hard enough. Once again, I find these accounts fascinating, but nobody has ever given a full technical account of exactly what went wrong and why. At least not one I can find. I suspect the manufacturers would want to cover up the details. On older cars there might not even be a detailed investigation - it'll just be put down to poor maintenance.
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Yes it was frightening as I was a front seat passenger and unable to do anything. At the time all I could see was all of these smashed up cars and stationary emergency vehicles ahead of us getting closer and closer. I had not had time to speak to my wife or anyone else if we did not make it through. It was surreal and it felt like a bad dream, a living nightmare. No surprise Ed went into shock as a result.
I am not a mechanic, so can’t tell you why the cruise control failed to disengage or why the brakes failed other than what I had written about it above - I stated the facts.
I know after Ed turned the engine off and despite his stature of being big and powerful, he had great difficulty in steering the car until it eventually stopped.
At the time the police were not interested in towing the car away or impounding it, all they wanted to do was to prosecute the driver.
Nothing was ever mentioned about poor maintenance…...
Eventually the police case was dropped.