Driver goes 60 miles at 135mph after accelerator jams - escapes from crash unhurt

nxbyveromdwjpg

A motorist drove for 60 miles at speeds of 135mph after the accelerator on his BMW car jammed and his brakes failed.

Kevin Nicolle, 26, was on the A1 near Thirsk in North Yorkshire when the car started to accelerate.

"I was in tears most of the time on the phone to the police - I really could see myself dying," he told the BBC.

He had to drive on the hard shoulder to avoid crashing but eventually lost control and hit a roundabout near Blyth, Notts, but escaped unhurt.

Speaking to BBC Five Live about the incident on 5 March Mr Nicolle said: "I was travelling down the motorway and I came to traffic in front of me.

"I took my foot off the accelerator because it's automatic - but I wasn't slowing down at all.

"I hit the brakes. They were braking ok, they were keeping me at about 70mph.

"So I phoned up the police after I called the AA and they said straight away 'stick your hazard lights on and headlights on - we've got a helicopter on route to you'."

Police patrol cars were also sent but struggled to catch up with the BMW 318.

Mr Nicolle said: "Then the brakes started burning out - I could see smoke coming from the brakes."

He tried to put the car into neutral but the gears were jammed.

Mr Nicolle was in constant contact with the police on a hands-free phone.

As he approached Blyth he saw a sign for a roundabout.

"There was a load of cars parked waiting to go onto the roundabout, so I went on the inside on the hard shoulder to try to get around it.

"But doing that sort of speed there was no chance and I hit the roundabout head on.

"I remember the 999 lady saying 'he's crashed'.

"I survived the accident but I thought I was going to die in the fire."

But miraculously he walked away completely unhurt - and said he is now considering giving up driving for good.

Mr Nicolle said the police took the car away for tests and BMW said they would carry out a full investigation.

The R reg car had 107,000 miles on the clock and had three months remaining on the MOT.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/4796264.stm

maidhc

Mmmm, three cheers for drive by wire.

Isnt it the same thing that caused the bus in dublin to plough into those people?

KTRIC

I'm going to try that excuse the next time I get pulled for speeding. Sorry Garda my trottle was stuck on 160 kph

byte

This was in one of the Sunday tabloids also, except in the paper he apparently said he'd definitely consider buying another BMW, as the smashed one showed how strong they were!

In the paper he said he didn't turn off ignition because power steering would stop working. But, woudl it not still be possible to steer the car, albeit a lot more elbow grease being required?

TempestSabre

Someone that stupid shouldn't be driving in the first place.

maidhc

TempestSabre wrote:

Someone that stupid shouldn't be driving in the first place.

The penny must have dropped ..."But miraculously he walked away completely unhurt - and said he is now considering giving up driving for good. "

I didnt think a 318 was capable of those speeds.

Tipsy Mac

byte wrote:

In the paper he said he didn't turn off ignition because power steering would stop working. But, woudl it not still be possible to steer the car, albeit a lot more elbow grease being required?

Doubt this, turning off the ignition would have been grand going in a straight line.

JohnCleary

What an eejit - Turn off the frickin ignition and you wont be long stopping :rolleyes:

SouperComputer

byte wrote:

This was in one of the Sunday tabloids also, except in the paper he apparently said he'd definitely consider buying another BMW, as the smashed one showed how strong they were!

In the paper he said he didn't turn off ignition because power steering would stop working. But, woudl it not still be possible to steer the car, albeit a lot more elbow grease being required?

Once the engine is turning, the power steering should be fine. Unless its an electric pump? Even then at speed the steering would be easy to use considering the minimal movement needed to get off the motorway.

Im surprised he burned the brakes, probably didnt use them hard enough before the temps got to em. Surely he could have slipped into neutral, thay have revlimiters after all.

WTF were the AA thinking?

drdre

wow that was a lucky escape.but that could happen to anyone, tempest if that happens to you we will be laughing, how can you say "Someone that stupid shouldn't be driving in the first place.".
you must be the stupid one:D

ando

i dont understand, could he not just turn the engine off? well then again, he's a bmw driver

seamus

Surely out of all of those people in the AA and the police force, that someone already thought of turning off the ignition? C'mon guys, give them some credit.

Perhaps someone here can elaborate further, but I've been in cars where the power steering only comes on with the engine, and other cars where it'll come on once the ignition circuit is on (y'know when you switch on the radio).

Assuming this is an expensive car, perhaps it was keyless, or has a keylocking mechanism preventing the key from being turned when the revs were at a certain level? Ignitions can do funny things too. My brother's malfunctions, so there's no need to hold they key to turn on the engine - he just pushes it once, and the engine turns over until it engages

JohnCleary

Actually, I had a jetski rev high uncontrolably last week, when I pressed the button to kill the ignition, nothing happened. The only way I managed to kill the engine was by flooding it by changing the air/fuel mix on the carb :eek:

Guy:Incognito

seamus wrote:

Surely out of all of those people in the AA and the police force, that someone already thought of turning off the ignition? C'mon guys, give them some credit.

Perhaps someone here can elaborate further, but I've been in cars where the power steering only comes on with the engine, and other cars where it'll come on once the ignition circuit is on (y'know when you switch on the radio).

Assuming this is an expensive car, perhaps it was keyless, or has a keylocking mechanism preventing the key from being turned when the revs were at a certain level? Ignitions can do funny things too. My brother's malfunctions, so there's no need to hold they key to turn on the engine - he just pushes it once, and the engine turns over until it engages

Well it had 107k miles so is most likely a few years old. Anyone have a link to the uk reg sytems , it was an R reg, so when was that? Any Uk dwellers on at the min? The firt thing that came to my mind after reading a few lines was "turn off the ignition" .

KTRIC

JohnCleary wrote:

Actually, I had a jetski rev high uncontrolably last week, when I pressed the button to kill the ignition, nothing happened. The only way I managed to kill the engine was by flooding it by changing the air/fuel mix on the carb :eek:

you weren't driving it at the time , were you ?

JohnCleary

K-TRIC wrote:

you weren't driving it at the time , were you ?

no, thankfully. I was just testing it so it was fixed in the water to the trailer. What happened was the throttle cable got stuck (Since replaced, running perfect noq!), but didnt see it at the time so I just flooded it by reducing the amount of air getting to the carb... I'm surprised I even thought of that.. im an idiot normally!

ds20prefecture

This really is a crock.

I thought BMWs were supposed to be well made? So the throttle sticks open AND the gears simultaneously "freeze" (in top of course) and the car is the first in the world to have steer by wire.

BTW - try holding your foot on the throttle in top at 70mph while standing on the brakes. Unless you've somthing like an M5 you're going to stop.

RobertFoster

Would the steering wheel not lock if there's no key in the ignition?

ds20prefecture

RobertFoster wrote:

Would the steering wheel not lock if there's no key in the ignition?

Yes, but you don't need to take the key out to turn the ignition off.

Guy:Incognito

RobertFoster wrote:

Would the steering wheel not lock if there's no key in the ignition?

You dont have to take the key out. He could have turned it to position 2 and still enjoyed teh radio while slowing down.

RobertFoster

ds20prefecture wrote:

Yes, but you don't need to take the key out to turn the ignition off.

Oh of course, didn't think of it that way. It was the excuse he gave in the paper article I read.

Dooom

maidhc wrote:

I didnt think a 318 was capable of those speeds.

318's are well capable of hitting that speed.
Although the first thing that crossed my mind was why didn't he try the handbrake?
I remember seeing something on tv regarding what in a situation where your brakes have failed. First thing was to lower speed by dropping down the gears, and using the handbrake to slow yourself. Then when you're at a slow enough speed, basically put the car into a sideways slide to come to a (more or less) stop.

Can't remember what the series was called, but Nick Frost hosted the program anyway.

Although the throttle being stuck open would be a bit of a kick in the teeth alright.

byte wrote:

This was in one of the Sunday tabloids also, except in the paper he apparently said he'd definitely consider buying another BMW, as the smashed one showed how strong they were!

My father was in a crash in his 318 about 2 years ago, and he walked away from it with just a bit of whiplash. The car flipped numerous times aswell and was totally written off, but the passenger cabin was completely intact. Airbags popped out from the most unlikely places aswell.

unkel

What a lot of crap. Sure even that chav thicko would have had plenty of time to think about his options :rolleyes:

seamus

Spike wrote:

Although the throttle being stuck open would be a bit of a kick in the teeth alright.

Well, if you can find a nice policeman to perform the PIT on you, or manage to get the vehicle to swerve 180 degrees, then you should happily kill your engine. I can't see it being a fantastic option at 70mph and/or when there are 3 lanes of traffic beside you

John R

nm wrote:

Mr Nicolle said the police took the car away for tests and BMW said they would carry out a full investigation.

The only test needed to sort this out is a polygraph on Mr Nicolle.

Our man in Havana

And we all know that polygraphs are inadmissable as evidence.

redman

Stekelly wrote:

You dont have to take the key out. He could have turned it to position 2 and still enjoyed teh radio while slowing down.

Brilliant!:D

SouperComputer

Although the first thing that crossed my mind was why didn't he try the handbrake?

The handbrake in most cases uses the same pads on the rear as the hydraulic\pedal system. It sounds like he took too long to slow the car down on the footbrake and baked the brakes. This would have meant the rear brakes were toast too.

Henry Ford III

I don't believe him. Throttle stuck wide open, and no brakes? I don't think so.

Was he drunk?

SouperComputer

Henry Ford III wrote:

I don't believe him. Throttle stuck wide open, and no brakes? I don't think so.

Was he drunk?

But if he took too long to slow the car down, he would have baked the brakes handy enough if the car is on full filt.

Henry Ford III

All mentioned above, but he could have put it into neutral, or turned of the key.

If a throttle jams, I'm suggesting you would instinctively brake hard and immediately to stop the thing. That would not damage the brakes.

MercMad

Well I will stand corrected if I am wrong on the BMW but on many new cars, my CLK included you cannot move the shift lever into neutral over a certain speed, about 20MPH in my car !

It doesn't budge !

You also cannot turn off the ignition either !

If you did and the engine stopped you would have ZERO power steering and no brake servo, though he obviously overheated and faded the brakes totally. Thats actually not so hard to do since the engine would produce more power to drive than the brakes can do to stop !

If you drive at 75MPH and open the throttle then keep your foot on the brakes you might be able to slow down but your brakes will overheat and become less effective, therefore you may accelerate again !

BrianD3

If he did get the ignition turned off the steering and brakes wouldn't be a problem. The brakes would just need a harder shove to slow the car down and at motorway speeds you'd barely notice if your power steering wasn't working. You'd notice if trying to take a sharp turn at slow speed though!

mike65

The Register is on the case scroll down a little.

Mike.

unkel

mike65 wrote:

The Register is on the case scroll down a little.

The Register wrote:

I experienced something similar when I was driving my E36 M3 late one night.

Luckily it was very late and the road was deserted, I had just finished an evening long sesh with a bunch of mates and was on my way home along the A38 from Exeter to Plymouth when I experienced what can only be described as an uncontrollable compulsion to bury the accelerator.

Let me tell you I really fought back despite being a bit tired and emotional but before I knew it I was doing 165mph, this carried on for about 20 miles before the entity (I can only presume it was of alien origin) released me and I was able to resume the usual 90 mph. Unfortunately there were no police about to help me

He he

el tel

I read this story at the weekend and was thinking to myself what an gimp this guy must have been as he didn't do x, y, z etc.

Then it ocurred to me that between this incident happening and me hearing of it, at the very least there would have been a few reporters, journalists and editors involved who obviously can't have been bothered to ask informed and probing questions that would help investigate the reality and so just slapped that guy's sensational statements straight into a bulletin which ends up on the front pages of the rags for the titillation of the average punter.

You'd think too they might have got someone slightly less biased than BMW's UK media relations manager who tells us that it was a 'freak accident'. Maybe an expert police driver could have been asked 'what should he have done'?

(I don't rate journalists at all...:))

SouperComputer

If you did and the engine stopped you would have ZERO power steering and no brake servo, though he obviously overheated and faded the brakes totally. Thats actually not so hard to do since the engine would produce more power to drive than the brakes can do to stop !

IF the engine stopped, the servo would hold up as long as you dont pump the pedal repeatedly. Even still you would probably get 4 or 5 pumps out of it. Try it sometime!

I still think that most cars breaking ability exceeds the power/torque output, but if you try to gently to slow the car down, you will end up worse off as the brakes will be way overheated. At a lower speed, and cars I have tried it on require a moderate amount of brake to produce a signifant slowdown on full throttle. Id love to try it out, cant think of anywhere safe to do it though

Alun

MercMad wrote:

Well I will stand corrected if I am wrong on the BMW but on many new cars, my CLK included you cannot move the shift lever into neutral over a certain speed, about 20MPH in my car !

How do you manage to change gear then? Or are we talking about an automatic here?

EDIT: Ooops ... just noticed in the original post that the car in question was an automatic. Oh well, another reason not to buy one then

Anan1

I'd be very, very surprised if a BMW 318i put out even a quarter of the power which its brakes are capable of absorbing. Try hitting the brakes hard in any car at say 50kp/h (a low speed, so wind resistance is not a large factor). Now ask yourself how many cars can replicate that kind of g-force under acceleration. As has been said earlier, the guy probably braked too gently, thus overheating his brakes.

SouperComputer

even quick road cars generally have heavy brakes.

Only problem I could see would be with a FWD car, you may end up locking the rears if you dont have ABS.

maidhc

Anan1 wrote:

I'd be very, very surprised if a BMW 318i put out even a quarter of the power which its brakes are capable of absorbing. Try hitting the brakes hard in any car at say 50kp/h (a low speed, so wind resistance is not a large factor). Now ask yourself how many cars can replicate that kind of g-force under acceleration. As has been said earlier, the guy probably braked too gently, thus overheating his brakes.

Also in 5th the car wouldnt have that much torque so it should drop away quite rapidly.

Henry Ford III

Spike wrote:

...318's are well capable of hitting that speed

I doubt it.

"R" reg is 97-98, and that model had a mere 115bhp and was an automatic. Futhermore it has well over 100,000 miles on the clock.

120mph perhaps?.

colm_mcm

I don't buy it, i reckon he knew he had been caught and was chancing his arm

Henry Ford III

colm_mcm wrote:

I don't buy it, i reckon he knew he had been caught and was chancing his arm

My exact thoughts.

milltown

60 miles at 135mph would take ~26mins.

By the look of him that's not long enough to think of anything as obvious as what's been posted here!

I wonder what speed he was doing when this catastrophic set of failures happened. If the brakes were able to keep him at 70mph, why not press them harder? At what point did he decide to forget the brakes and just see what happens?

And if there was a load of cars waiting to get onto the roundabout, there was presumably a load of cars already on it. If he came from the hard shoulder and hit the roundabout how in God's name did he not kill a few other people?

Anan1

My guess, for what it's worth, is as follows:

1. Floormat jams accelerator down.

2. He brakes constantly, but not hard enough to actually stop the car

3. After a while, brakes overheat, become ineffective, away he goes...

That figure of 135mph is probably a fantasy. Remember when the two Guards were killed on the Stillorgan dual carriageway a few years back? The papers were all talking about 130mph then too. In a 1.6 litre MX5..

qz

ando wrote:

i dont understand, could he not just turn the engine off? well then again, he's a bmw driver

Careful now...

Anan1

ando wrote:

i dont understand, could he not just turn the engine off? well then again, he's a bmw driver

Turn the engine off?? Sure those boys can't even turn their foglights off!;)

Turner

Anan1 wrote:

My guess, for what it's worth, is as follows:
That figure of 135mph is probably a fantasy. Remember when the two Guards were killed on the Stillorgan dual carriageway a few years back? The papers were all talking about 130mph then too. In a 1.6 litre MX5..

It was a 2001 1.8 litre MX5 which hit the Garda Car. Top speed of 122mph.