Gulf News today reports on the
story of an Emirati motorist who was rescued by Abu Dhabi police after the cruise control on his Japanese 4WD jammed on the Al Ain Highway. He'd set the control at 160kph and called emergency after realising that it had not only jammed but also jammed the brakes. Three patrol cars from Abu Dhabi police surrounded him, one in front to clear the road and one either side of him in case he lost control. Meanwhile police operations tried to keep him calm and talk him around to a solution which was, eventually, to apply the handbrake to bring the speeding car to a halt.
Apparently one piece of help the police were able to give him was to tell him to secure his seatbelt. I'd have fined him for that one, for starters...
It took 45 minutes in all to bring the situation under control.
The GN report is all very breathless, but as usual fails to answer the one BIG question that any mildy questing reader would surely ask.
Why didn't he just turn the ignition off and coast to a stop under manual steering and braking?
4 comments:
Switching the ignition off would have been too obvious and not as much fun
Maybe the machine has keyless ignition and push-button start. Then a major failure in the black box could conceivably disable the 'push to stop' feature.
Banging the gearbox into neutral would have allowed the vehicle to roll to a stop, with the rev limiter protecting against bent valves.
But all these suggestions are easy when sitting in front of a computer and not barrelling along at 160kph with no brakes, no seatbelt, and one hand on a mobile phone.
Wonder if anyone's reported which car he was driving. Might save some lives to let the public know.
Do they still have 160 roads in the UAE ?
one of the papers had it as a landcruiser (presumably white) which would put half the population at risk....
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