Driving

An 86 year old man, Russell Weller, who ploughed his car through a Santa Monica farmer’s market, is in the news and not in a good way. The facts of the story are simple enough; the car Weller was driving took off down a closed street, killing 10 people who were at the market. Police have hinted that Weller had mistaken the gas pedal for the brake pedal. The police have impounded his car to test for mechanical problems and even checked his home for any drugs that could have caused impairment. Charges may be pending.

Simple enough for us to judge: Geezer at the wheel, blood pressure medicine, a lightheaded spell and bodies flying every which way as a result. Well, it is not always that clear. For those with long memories, they will recall the Audi Unintentional Acceleration ruckus in the early 80’s.

The bones of the Audi story were somewhat related. Audi Quattro cars with automatic transmissions would suddenly accelerate at full throttle when the owners started them, even though the owners swore on a stack of Bibles they were standing on the brake pedal. One notable incident saw a Quattro shoot through the back of a garage and land in the swimming pool.

Both stories bring up the issue of man-machine interface. If you drive an automatic transmission car built in the last few years you notice that you cannot shift from Park unless your foot is firmly on the brake pedal. This little safety gem is courtesy of the Audi Quattro.

Car and Driver magazine did extensive testing of the Quattro back then and could not under any circumstances, get the car to overpower its brakes, as long as the driver had their foot on the brake pedal. Even with the engine at wide open throttle and forcing the transmission into gear, as long as the brakes were on, the Quattro just stalled dead or did a brake stand and spluttered.

Did Russell Weller have his foot on the brake of his Buick when he went whistling through the farmer’s market? Obviously not; it had to be on the gas. Did Russell Weller mistake the gas for the brake? Most likely. Now, we have a question we can work with. Why?

We take driving for granted. We get in the machine, turn the key, grab a gear and go. From placing your butt in the seat to rolling down the driveway is usually a five-second process. Perhaps we take an extra second to adjust the mirror if someone else has been driving the car, but five seconds is about it.

Some of this is muscle memory: We “know” where the pedals, shifter and radio controls are because we have done it so many times in our car. There is the real problem. We don’t consciously make the motions to the brake, gas, clutch, lights, turn signals and four ways every time we get in the car, checking visually to see if we’re right. Our Brain assumes the leg muscle knows how to get to the brake if the brain says “kid in road chasing ball, apply brakes hard, now”. If that muscle memory is off, by an inch or two, you either miss the brake, or hit the gas pedal. Which puts us in Russell Weller Land and on the News in a context that is less than favourable.

Is there an answer to this? Part of the answer is called Recurrent Testing. To my mind you should re-test for your Driver’s License every five years: Eye exam, written test, driving test. This should help to weed out, or retrain the truly stupid, ignorant, careless or medically unfit. Aviation has been doing this for years and it is proven to work.

Since the Wright Brothers days, scientists have examined how humans and machines interact with repetitive tasking that contains an element of risk. The body of knowledge is extensive from aviation and even railroads. Very little of it has been applied to cars and trucks.

As an example, if you look at a small airplane cockpit, you’ll notice something. There are very few switch handles alike so the pilot can recognize the function of the switch by feel without breaking his gaze out the window. Some controls are action positive, meaning you must consciously put the control in a position to perform its operation by opening a guard or moving a lever from a detent or gate. You can’t accidentally knock the control into operation.

Air brakes on a truck are another example, based on railroad technology. The default is brakes fully on. Only when air pressure at a predetermined level is present do the brakes release. Any cut in the line or loss of air pressure and the brakes go back to fully on.

Cars are exactly opposite. Default is brakes off. Controls, like a turn signal, can be easily moved with a shirt sleeve. High beam headlights are a toggle, once to turn on, once again to turn off. Pedals are in different positions in different models of cars, with different pedal spacing.

If we did apply some consistency of placement and operation of key controls to cars would we eliminate driver error? Nothing works 100 percent, but this won’t hurt. Will recurrent testing eliminate driver error? No, but this won’t hurt either. Better driver training to start with? Also a good thing.

The prevention of another Russell Weller is a combination of changes based on knowledge we already have from aviation, railroads and pure science. All it takes is some societal will and some intelligence.