Cars gone wild: The major contributor to unintended acceleration in automobiles is pedal error

Abstract

"Unintended-acceleration" automobile accidents typically begin when the driver first enters the car, starts the engine, and intends to press his/her right foot on the brake while shifting from Park to a drive gear (Drive or Reverse). The driver reports an unintended (uncommanded) full-throttle acceleration, coupled with a loss of braking, until the episode ends in a crash. Pedal misapplications - where the right foot contacts the accelerator instead of the brake that was intended - have been linked to these accidents (Schmidt, 1989, 1993) which, in the 1980s, were thought to occur only at the start of a driving cycle (and/or with the car in Park). But, in 1997, we identified over 200 pedal errors as the cause of accidents reported in the North Carolina database; these crashes occurred during the driving cycle (Schmidt et al., 1997), and/or with the vehicle in a gear other than Park. Our present work provides a more thorough analysis of these North Carolina Police Accident Reports from 1979 to 1995. The vast majority of pedal misapplications (over 92%) (a) occurred during the driving cycle, (b) were generally in "unhurried" conditions, and (c) were categorically separate from those events referred to as unintended-acceleration episodes at start-up. These ideas are explanatory for the recent (2009-2010) surge of unintended-acceleration reports, perhaps even suggesting that all of these crashes are caused by pedal errors, and that none of them are based on some vehicle defect(s). © 2010 Schmidt and Young.