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This sounds ridiculously stressful: Frank Lecerf was driving his car adapted for the disabled in France when it got stuck at 60MPH. He tried to brake. The car accelerated. He tried to brake again. It kept getting faster. Finally, the car ended up stuck, zooming along at 125MPH, and there was no way to stop it. Lecerf drove for over an hour at 125MPH and somehow didn’t even get into an accident.
Lecerf was just making a regular ol’ trip to the market in his Renault Laguna when this all happened, and by the end of the longest (and fastest) hour of his life, he found himself on the border of Belgium, 125 miles away from his home (in Pont-de-Metz, France). Lecerf miraculously avoided killing anyone because he had the light-bulb smarts to alert the police who quickly sent out police cars to accompany him and alerted toll booths to keep their gates open.
Renault actually had a technician online with Lecerf while he was speeding, but they weren’t able to stop the car. The frightening one man car race ended when Lecerf managed to safely swerve his car into a ditch as it ran out of gas. In retrospect, it must’ve been pretty damn fun. [Guardian, Le Courrier Picard]
Image credit: Car from Shutterstock
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I sniff a bit of porkies…
Renault Laguna… capable of 125mph!? ppffhhh !
exactly what I was thinking, especially as Belguim is north of France so it must have been uphill as well
Depends how much a straight you have, been in a car whilst a friend got a 1.1 clio up to over 110 (the limit of the speedo)
Where does your friend buy the petrol for his 1.1 Clio?
It does make me wonder about the guy’s intelligence. There were things that he could have done to mitigate the situation:
1. Turn the ignition off. Pretty straightforward. Engine dies, car stops.
2. Take the car out of gear. Sure, the engine will over-rev and possibly explode, but it’d be replaced – and if he used point no. 1 as well, no big deal.
The story doesn’t say exactly how the car had been modified for disabled drivers, but it’s quite possible it was an automatic and had an keyless start system rather than a traditional ignition.
What the story does say, that you apparently missed, was that there was a Renault technician talking to him to try and fix the problem while it was happening. If it was as easy as your two suggestions, you’d think they’d have managed to stop it.
It’s a French technician, does it count?
There’s a good change that with it being a Renault that putting on the indicator, starting the rear wipers or tuning the radio into 103.5 – Le Jazz François would have activated the brakes.
I almost bought a French car. But then I took my medication.
Could’ve been worse, just imagine if he pulled the handbrake and forgot to buckle up?
Never never never turn the ignition off whilst moving. Not unless you enjoy losing your steering and brakes completely.
And as for number 2, I’m guessing the car was an automatic. He could possibly have shifted it into neutral, but if the gearbox wasn’t responding (which could be possible, given the lack of response from the brake), it wouldn’t have made a difference what the selector was set to.
Turning the ignition off does not make you lose your steering and brakes. It cuts the power assistance, sure, but you can still control the car. I think I’d rather have heavy steering and weak brakes than a car hurtling along at 125mph.
At that speed, you may as well not have either.
Well he already had no brakes apparently. As far as steering is concerned, cutting the power assistance would make the steering heavy at lower speeds, but at 100+mph I reckon you’d still have good responsiveness.
As an aside, the reliance of modern cars on power assistance for vital components such as these is one of the reasons why I drive an 80s car.
There’s still the chance of the steering lock coming on. If it was a Renault, it would have had keyless ignition, so the lock would have come on if he toggled the ignition.
The fact still remains, its pretty dumb to turn your car off at speed, and should only be used in a serious emergency.
I think this scenario probably counted as a serious emergency.
It clearly wasn’t as simple as that. Also at 125mph losing your steering to a locked wheel would be very bad. It would take quite a distance to slow to a safe crashing speed
Eh? Don’t have brake or steering servo assistance on my track car… slows down 150mph into a corner perfectly fine.
Good for you. He wasn’t driving a track car.
It is has power steering it would as the steering wheel would lock into position when the ignition is shut down. And if there were problems, there would be no guarantee that the steering would come back if he attempted to restart the car.
Cut the assistance in an… Assistive vehicle? Yup.
You turn off the ignition in a moving car and the steering locks. I know this, it’s shite scary at 30mph.
At 125mph you are proper fucked innit?
Steering locks and brake/clutch doesn’t work either, I know from my personal experience when I was in an hour long post footie traffic jam so I switched my engine off but instead of using handbrake I put my foot down on brake and it started to roll! Luckily the car in front was not too close and I pulled the handbrake just in time, seesh!
I’ve seen similar video on one of those TV reality show the other night. This lady was stuck when brake failed but finally the engine gave up shutting down! I might try this trick out next toll and save some dosh.
Oh yeah. Like British police would fall for that one. “I can’t stop it Officer; honest!”
I call BS. As anthropolyte says, cut the engine, take it out of gear. Even for an auto (most likely, given the fella is disabled) it can be put into neutral and come to a coasted stop. And as a last resort, you’ve got the handbrake.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_unintended_acceleration
Using the handbrake at that speed would probably swerve the car sideways which could lead to flipping it (although your right that the car would then stop).
Hollywood wants to do a reboot of the Speed franchise. They now have their story.
I remember reading about something like this in the early 90′s but in Britain and in some kind of Volkswagen. As I recall, turning the ignition off didn’t work. Similar to this one, there was a police escort keeping things clear. Woman driver. police had been alerted by some lorry driver IIRC.
I used to drive a Laguna a 58 plate, more than capable of 125MPH if there was enough road, which this guy had by the sounds of it.
Turning off the Engine is impossible, the Laguna has a power start button not your conventional key, it will not let you turn off the engine whilst in motion.
As for throwing it into natural I will let you guys figure that one out.
Ah, “natural gear”, the gear where suddenly everything feels right.
I see what I did there, a natural gear, would this be a gear that doesn’t use any fuel and has a positive affect on the environment?
Natural gear.
You mean 3rd right?
Heard this on 5Live earlier. He’s had a problem like this before. Renault said there wasn’t a problem. He’s had 2 seizures since (so I assume will lose his licence). He drives for his job so will probably lose that too.
He’s suing Renault. Rightly so I think.
Well at least he wasnt in a Veyron
I can imagine the phone conversation….
“Hello. Welcome to Renault technical assistance.
Press 1 if your can’t will not start
Press 2 for breakdown assistance or
Press 3 if you are hurtling towards flaming death at illegal speeds.
You have pressed 3. We are sorry you are rushing headlong towards a fiery oblivion…..
Please note that this call will be recorded so your next of kin will have at least some record of what could be your last moments…..
Please wait while we connect you with one of our highly trained mechanic/counsellors…..”
Grrr EDIT BUTTON PLEASE
1. Press 1 if your CAR will not start!
More like “Please hold the line. Your call is in a queue.”
just pissed myself laughing at this; nice mate.
CIA, /Mossad, /SIS ..
Boston Brakes
https://www.google.co.uk/search?sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&site=&source=hp&q=boston+brakes&btnG=Search&pbx=1&oq=&aq=&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=&gs_upl=
Could you not have used a shorter link?
https://www.google.co.uk/#q=boston+breaks
Whoops!
https://www.google.co.uk/#q=boston+brakes
But my single posting takes up less space than your two postings,
and went to the intended search result with one click compared with your two.
That wouldn’t be true if we had an edit function
And my brain is more efficient as witnessed by above facts,
and therefore does not need as big a head to enclose it.
my post is in fact smaller than your nick name here, flipping eck! What are you American?
It’s a long nickname, but it shouldn’t take too much effort to remember
lol fair point, it doesn’t
Probably 125kph.
Would have been interesting watching him slot the car through the toll booths at 125mph
Original article says he reached speeds of almost 200kph. GCSE French turned out useful after all!
Seems like the ditch is really for dramatic effect once the fuel’s already out
So the lesson to be learned here is: next time your car is out of control at 125mph, post a comment on Gizmodo, which is the modern equivalent of Johnny the shoeshine guy from Police Squad….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_19mxj2LME
I’m thinking Renault, the people who make the Scenic with its touch to start, automatic brake instead of a hand brake and semi-automatic gearbox with no way to abort it.
If the accelerator switch jammed and the brake switch decided to go dysfunctional (or was blocked by the accelerator arm) then the only way to stop would be to wait until the car ran out of fuel or colliding with something or someone.
Perhaps Renault could implement an engine cut-off, by severing power to the fuel pump and closing the air intake valve.