Wrong way on the On Ramp

Yesterday, while riding my motorcycle to Long Point, I witnessed the legendary "wrong way on the freeway ramp" scenario first hand.

The day started bright, dry and warm. It was already 11c by the time I started getting the bike out of the garage late in the morning. I was driving almost on autopilot to Paris, because I am so familiar with the route - maybe 20-30 times this year. In Paris I loaded up with a tank of gas, and soon was on Highway 24 crossing the 403, with a small car in front of me. Suddenly, and very unexpectedly the car slowed to almost a stop, and then tried to turn right, into the exit ramp coming off the 403. This was clearly marked with three "do not enter" traffic signs and an arrow one-way sign. Also, the wrong-way cars path was blocked by an SUV coming the other way on the ramp, at the stop sign. So the car hesitatingly nosed its way around the SUV, partly taking to the shoulder, while the lady SUV driver peered down, with a slightly amused look on her face. I did not think of honking my horn, which is pretty feeble anyway. The SUV driver apparently did not see anything horribly wrong with what was happening.

Seeing the car get on the wrong way ramp, then begin acceleration toward the freeway, I pulled over to the shoulder and wondered if I could do anything. For example, could I chase the car the wrong way down the ramp. Not legally, of course, but in reality, might it cause the car driver to speed up even more and possibly be the cause of a fatal accident? I just waited, and signalled my concern to the lady in the SUV, who was still sitting there. She gave me a smile in return, but I thought maybe she did not understand what was happening. Just then, I heard a long air horn blast from a truck that was near the car, but it was on the correct entrance ramp. The wrong way car then hesitated again and slowed, then stopped. A pickup driver, also on the correct ramp, stopped, jumped out and ran across the grass to talk to the puzzled wrong way driver. It looked like the situation was under control, so I resumed my ride to Long Point. (via Port Dover first).

Whenever I drive anywhere I automatically take an interest in other traffic situations. You might think of it as poking my nose in other people's business. But my interest in what other drivers are doing has saved me a few times over the years. When driving the car, I used to make comments on the other driver's mistakes, although I have cut down on this activity quite a bit, at Mary Ann's request. Mary Ann does not like it when I criticise other drivers aloud while we are in the car together. I suspect that might even be part of the reason she likes motorcycles. (We have no intercom system, nor does she want one.)

If I had been the SUV driver, I'm pretty sure I would have yelled, honked my horn, waved, or done something to get the attention of the wrong way driver. But being behind, I don't know how I could have got their attention without following and possibly trying to pass them.

It reminds me of a situation years ago, the only time I recall passing a car and flagging them down. I was on my motorcycle when I witnessed an accident take place. It was a getaway car being followed by an unmarked police car, which hit an oncoming pickup truck, and the lone police officer went over to pull the drug dealer out of the burning car and put the handcuffs on him. I decided to turn around and head home, as I had almost been hit during this incident, and I was a bit shaken up. Just then I saw a municipal police car with two officers in it, pull into the road in front of me, also heading away from the accident. I overtook them, waved them off the road, and told them there was an accident just down the street. I guess they didn't know because it was an RCMP officer and he probably didn't have a radio connection with the rest of the town police force. Anyway, I quickly decided that I needed to do something, and according to the police, pulling them over (even in a no-passing zone) was the right thing to do, as they immediately u-turned and sped off to the accident.

Picture: Apparently Nissan is trying to develop a wrong way warning Navigation system. I wonder if the wrong way driver I saw was blindly following a GPS navigation system? I don't have a GPS myself, but friends complain that there are glitches in them.

http://jalopnik.com/5142967/nissan-developing-wrong-way-pedestrian-collision-alert-technology

Now if we only had BMW's cruise control with "Stop 'n Go" feature, and their lane detection system, we can safely remove the requirement to have a driver's licence. I'm not sure what good it does anyway.

Is a Gold Wing Like a Sport Bike?

The Honda Gold Wing has had a unique place in the motorcycling world ever since its introduction. It has only been briefly challenged once as the most sophisticated long distance touring bike, but I would say that today it is solidly at the top of the heap.

When it was introduced in 1976, it had an opposed four cylinder motor of 1000 cc. Honda only sold it "naked" as we say today. That means it did not come equipped in the showroom with fairing and luggage. But aftermarket suppliers saw to it that almost every GoldWing was soon set up for comfort and hauling extra crap, for a bit of extra money.

Over the years, the Gold Wing has grown, and features have been added. The weight has gone up and so has the price, and the power, and the number of extra options.

I admire the Gold Wing as a touring machine, but I have never owned one because it is not my style. Mainly I am cheap. But also I do not like balancing so much weight at a stop, or pushing it around the garage. I'm sure Mary Ann would like the comfort of sitting in the passenger perch, in the lap of luxury, but now she has her own bike and likes that even more.

I am not trying to put down the Gold Wing at all. Because of its weight and length, it is slightly restricted in its nimbleness, its maneuverability in corners and on curving roads. But when I road tested a Gold Wing once, it seemed to be just as fast in the corners as any other bike, at least at the speeds I was able to go. A few years later, I was riding my BMW K1100LT in front of a newer 1800cc Gold Wing, and the Wing was easily keeping up to BMW through some fast corners. At the end of the road I checked over the Honda and noticed the footpegs were ground off right up to the top rubber. That Gold Wing rider was obviously used to riding it fast. A Gold Wing makes the rider feel like it can keep up with lighter and more nimble bikes. The BMW weighed about 200 pounds less. But common sense says no way can a longer, heavier bike keep up when pushing the envelope. I think if you were suddenly faced with a really sharp turn, the Gold Wing might not make it while a lighter bike may get through. But I don't have any proof of it.

Another problem I have with the Gold Wing is the sheer number of fiddly things on it to play with. The stereo, intercom, cruise control, GPS, and I'm sure there's more. I know you can add all this stuff to any other bike, but the point is, it is distracting. One of the safety features of a motorcycle is that you are forced to pay more attention than in a car. But a Gold Wing, with its sheer size, number of built in goodies, tends to isolate you from the road, and distract you at the same time.

Now if Gold Wings were feared as dangerous bikes that crashed a lot, maybe that would help their riders concentrate on the road. But no, they apparently are safe bikes that rarely crash. I suggest that is mainly due to many of the Gold Wingers being kind of slow riders. But on a twisty road, a Gold Wing does not force you to slow down the way most big, heavy, bikes do. My Vulcan 900, a much smaller bike, is far more scary going around a corner than a Gold Wing, and grounds its floorboards threateningly at much lower speeds.

What if you have a really good rider on a Gold Wing, riding with a group of other fast riders? Might that result at some point in the Gold Wing rider hitting a corner a little too fast because they were listening to the stereo, and not being able to wrestle the big bike around the corner? I remember only three horrific accidents with motorcycle journalists in the last ten years. One was at Cycle Canada in 2003, and one was at Baggersmag.com last year. I'm sure that three accidents don't prove anything, but two were on Gold Wings that missed a curve. The other was safety expert Larry Grodsky who hit a deer.

Maybe its just another chance to remind riders that there is no such thing as a perfectly safe motorcycle. And that your attention and care are always demanded. And another: Goldwings probably should not be driven as if they were sport bikes. On the other hand SUV's should not be driven like sports cars.

Here is a video of a Gold Wing being driven faster than most people could ride a sport bike. But I'm guessing familiar road, familiar bike. Without both you would have a very ugly situation. Heck even with both, a bit of bad luck, a few leaves on the road, or a truck coming the other way...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nrMQ3QwyPo

Baby Killer Toyotas?

I wish I had bookmarked this comment, but I didn't and I can't find it. However, I have decided it is an important enough issue, just on principle, for another Public Service Announcement"

The comment was made in response to the Toyota Sudden Unintended Acceleration problem. The issue is turning off the engine, where on a keyless ignition, at highway speed, you need to hold down the button for three seconds before the engine shuts off.

One commenter had something like this to say. My baby is sleeping in a room right in front of where I park my Toyota, and is protected only by a flimsy wall. The truck could easily reach and kill the baby before I can say "one-Mississippi two-Mississippi three-Mississippi" and shut the engine off.

This particular comment does not appear so extraordinary at first, but it popped back into my head later. Did this person convert his garage into a nursery for the baby? That would explain the flimsy structure, as the garage door might be flimsily boarded over to look like a wall. Anyway, lets look at all the problems with this scenario.

You should not put your babies in front of vehicles unless you have a reasonable barrier to protect the baby. This would go for all human beings, by the way. The most common way for an accident to happen here, is the driver gets in the car or truck, starts the engine, accidentally puts it in drive, instead of reverse, while forgetting to hold the brake. The truck lurches forward, and the driver is too shocked to respond, or worse yet, responds by mashing the accelerator in haste instead of the brake, compounding the problem. This is not a Toyota problem at all, and it is not entirely a stupid driver problem. It is a situational problem. You should not set up a situation where the vehicle could easily kill somebody if you make a simple mistake. Mistakes happen, so try to avoid setting up traps like this.

Now about the three second delay. This delay is only when the car is at highway speeds. When stopped or parked, the shutoff is instantaneous, just the way it works every other time the driver turns off the engine.

If you hold your foot on the brake, the car or truck will not move, even if you give it full gas. I have tried this with a sixties-era car, and brakes were not as good then, but the engines were pretty powerful before anyone started worrying about fuel shortages. And when the car is not actually moving, the brakes will hold the car as long as you can press your foot down, they will never burn up. On the highway, it is possible to burn out the brakes if you don't stop the car.

Another thought, is the truck parked uphill from the baby's flimsy chamber? Because in that case you may cause a lot of damage just by forgetting to put it in park or not applying the parking brake.

There are certainly two aspects to this story. I have had kids myself, and I know how hard it is to prevent them from getting run over by a car. They manage to escape in an instant, and head right for the nearest busy road to cross. It has happened to me. Drivers often speed through our quiet dead end street neighbourhood, until speed bumps were installed, and then they started taking short cuts over the lawns to avoid the speed bumps until a neighbour placed a rock ornament in the middle of the lawn. Now its a lot safer for kids. That's what it takes to protect kids. You baby would be taken away by a child protective service if you ever put your baby to sleep in a cardboard box in front of the wheels of a parked vehicle. The reason you do not have your baby taken away is only because your structure is stronger than a cardboard box. But how much stronger?

It's too bad that emotional situations like get dragged out just to add fuel to the Toyota hysteria. Many people get crazy when they just think of babies being hurt.

Helmets and Helmet Laws

A motorcycle journalist was fired for writing a story critical of Snell helmet standards. Unfortunately this tells you as much about journalistic standards as it does about helmet standards.

Helmets have become more than just a physical protection against head injury. They are at the centre of the controversy about laws requiring riders to wear helmets. And, in the minds of some people, they have become a sort of magic talisman to ward off accidents.

According to accident statistics, helmets prevent death from head injury in about a third of the cases. They work best in a collision where the speed and impact is small enough to be absorbed by the helmet, but large enough to cause death if the helmet was not worn. Also, helmets are pretty good at spreading the impact from a sharp corner (like a curb) to prevent it from cracking the skull. In case you didn't know, you can die from brain impact on the inside of the skull without the skull being broken. Helmets are also very good at preventing abrasion injuries (road rash) on the head, and with full face helmets, that includes the face as well. I don't know what the statistics are for brain damage on survivors, I suspect that is a lot harder to determine statistically.

The helmet industry is big business now, with helmets selling for up to a thousand dollars, and people replacing them more frequently. I notice some people have quite large collections of helmets. I do myself, but that's partly because I hate throwing things away, and there's not much market for 10 year old used helmets.

At various times there have been controversies about helmets causing deaths, that might have been avoided with no helmet.

I suspect that the helmet business would prefer to not be examined too closely, and as a result I think many journalists are intimidated away from the subject. The outspoken criticism comes mainly from people who don't want the helmets at all, not from people who question how well the helmets work.

In a perfect world, we would not need helmet laws, people would be smart enough to wear helmets almost all the time. And we would not be afraid of getting fined for not wearing our helmets while driving our motorcycle from the gas pumps to a parking spot at the service centre. Or riding at 10 kph through a campground to find our tent site. And in a perfect world, we could have frank and open discussions about how good helmets are, and whether they could be better. And no journalist would be fired for asking some questions about how they are tested.

Picture: From the South African website entry There is also a store bought helmet in the picture, strapped to the headlight.

Oil Spill Done, Hysteria Shifts Back to Toyota

Now that the oil spill is over, time to focus the hysteria back where it really belongs: Toyota.

July 13, the "Wall Street Journal" put out a story titled "Early Tests Pin Toyota Accidents on Drivers"

The link to the article is here.

Here is a partial quote:

"One case studied by U.S. regulators involves Myrna Marseille of Kohler, Wis., who reported in March that her 2009 Toyota Camry accelerated out of control and crashed into a building.

Ms. Marseille said in an interview Tuesday that she was entering a parking space near a library when she heard the engine roar. "I looked down and my foot was still on the brake, so I did not have my foot on the gas pedal," she said.

Police in Sheboygan Falls, Wis., investigated and believe driver error was to blame, Chief Steven Riffel said Tuesday. He said surveillance video showed that the brake lights didn't illuminate until after the crash. But Mr. Riffel said that determination is preliminary and that his agency has turned over the investigation to NHTSA.

Based on the black box data, NHTSA investigators found that the brake was not engaged and the throttle was wide open, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Ms. Marseille sticks by her story. "It makes me very angry when someone tells me, 'She probably hit the gas pedal instead,' because I think it's a sexist comment, an ageist comment," she said."

Apparently, in the thousands of different cases to sift through, it takes a while to get the truth, if it's even possible. In the case of Myrna Marseille, although she swore she was pressing the brake, a video surveillance camera showed that she was not, the car's brake light came on after the crash. The car's internal data recorder is consistent with the surveillance camera.

This story in the WSJ got plenty of reaction. For example, Autoguide's title is "Report: Toyota ‘Planted’ Driver Error Story Claims NHTSA Insider"

You can read the original story yourself, (I hope) and see that Toyota and the NHTSA sources are actually credited right in the Wall Street Journal story, so "planted" is a misuse of the word in this context.

for example:

"A NHTSA spokeswoman declined to comment on the findings, which haven't been released by the agency."

"Daniel Smith, NHTSA's associate administrator for enforcement, told a panel of the National Academy of Sciences last month that the agency's sudden-acceleration probe had yet to find any car defects beyond those identified by the company: pedals entrapped by floor mats, and accelerator pedals that are slow to return to idle.

"In spite of our investigations, we have not actually been able yet to find a defect" in electronic throttle-control systems, Mr. Smith told the scientific panel, which is looking into potential causes of sudden acceleration.

"We're bound and determined that if it exists, we're going to find it," he added. "But as yet, we haven't found it."

"Some Toyota officials say they are informally aware of the NHTSA data-recorder results. Toyota officials haven't been briefed on the findings, but they corroborate its own tests, said Mike Michels, the chief spokesman for Toyota Motor Sales."

Toyota's biggest mistake was its early decision to not lay the blame on driver error. It's like sticking a bleeding hand into the Amazon river to check for Piranhas. I think Toyota is quite aware now that there are more bad drivers out there than they originally thought. Not just bad drivers, but people who don't have access to unbiased information in the news. And I haven't even got to the pathological liars yet.

Picture: Graph shows the complaints spiked after the news stories got out, and not when Toyota installed fly by wire throttles, as the Class action lawsuit lawyers alleged.

Safe Merging for Motorcycles

There are some dangerous situations that are not well understood by most motorcyclists. I think this is one of them. Yesterday, I was a passenger on Mary Ann's Burgman, and we were merging on to the freeway. An aggressive driver was following her down the ramp, and at the point where she actually merged onto the freeway, he pulled out to pass us and managed to get into the exact spot where we merged. So, two vehicles in the same spot at the same time. We didn't touch, but that is way too close for comfort.

Now why? She was travelling at a reasonable speed, she signalled properly, and did a shoulder check before moving over. A real scientific investigation would need to re-examine all those statements, of course just to make sure for example that the turn signal light had not burned out, or to find out exactly what the speed really was.

In my opinion, this could not normally happen because a car would not be able to accelerate fast enough to get into that spot in the time it takes to complete the merging process. However, a combination of everything going wrong at the same time might just do it. That would require all of the following.

1. To allow the scooter slow just slightly while doing the merge.
2. The car behind has a lot of power, and has left a gap, which is already closing with full acceleration.
3. Doing the shoulder check a fraction of a second too soon, when the car has not come close enough yet.
4. Not turning the neck quite far enough, or having the view partially blocked by the passenger (me)

Of course, if the other car drivers were any good, they obviously should plan for, and allow the driver in front to merge ahead of them. But because of the high density of traffic, this stupid situation happens frequently enough (in southern Ontario anyway) for the lead driver to plan for it and take precautions to prevent the following driver from trying to shut them out. What can be done?

It is no good to try and leave them behind with pure speed on the ramp, as they might then accelerate to follow you and this might make things worse. But here are things that can be done.

1. Try to merge into the freeway lane as soon as possibe, which is at the beginning of the dashed lines. Unfortunately, a few following drivers merge before the dashed line starts, crossing the solid lines.
OR if the merge lane is really, really long, you could wait for the tailgater or whatever to get by before merging. This is only possible, if they start the merge too early, AND if the ramp is long enough, and we have some ramps around here that are over a kilometer long.

2. Accelerate as you merge. I think this is always better than steady speed or even (heaven forbid!) slowing while merging. The only reason I slow when merging is to fall in close behind another vehicle. But even then I try to accelerate as I cross the dotted line, to try and match speeds. However this matching speeds trick needs practice. By the way, practice is always good, just do the practicing when it's not raining, or night, and the roads are not busy, and no construction or other distractions. Otherwise it's not called practice, it called dangerous driving.

3. Shoulder check twice when some driver is following you onto the freeway. The last shoulder check should be as you cross the dotted line. I have occasionally been saved by a second shoulder check. It's really shocking, when it happens, because the car is so close, and because of that surprise I may jerk the handlebars a bit, but I have always managed to get back into my lane before contact.

4. Sticking a left hand out to help indicate where you want to go is another way to get attention, when you have a potential danger behind, who may not feel they need to respect turn signals.

Anything else? I suggest a bumper sticker on the back "Honk if you like to see guns fired from a motorcycle", instead of "I brake for turtles" (guess which is Mary Ann's bumper sticker)

We Need Better Risk Assessment and Management

People are incredibly bad at risk management. BP's estimate for the gulf oil spill was 75 million dollars liability for the worst possible accident, but the reality is going to be more like at least 20,000 million dollars. 

The fundamental idea of risk management is that first, you must know the cost and second, the likelihood of an unplanned event. And then be able to do some simple math.

Ten years ago I was trying to set up a small computer software company. I found out that I better keep this quiet or my home insurance would skyrocket. Apparently, my home insurance company considers writing a computer program at home to be high risk, and I would have to pay double or triple for my home insurance. Then I tried to rent a table to display the program at a business convention. The insurance cost alone for the three day show would be $5,000. It was considered a great risk that I might sell a program that would create a huge amount of damage, and the show organizers might be sued. My program was a database for tracking the location of wires in a building. The way it was explained to me, was that all software could be easily modified, and what started as a wiring database could end up as a space shuttle guidance system. And today, of course it could have been modified again to guide BP drilling platforms.

Was that $5000 insurance warranted? Of course not. It was not only outrageous, but also stifling free enterprise and entrepreneurship.

Meanwhile, BP, drilling one of the deepest oil wells ever, estimates that the worst case scenario is a 75 million dollar cleanup tab. Who exactly is making these estimates that are simultaneously destroying the ecosystem, and stifling entrepreneurship? Because they are not accountable to anyone, and they are making monstrous errors at the same time, and everybody suffers in the long run.

Other examples if poor risk assessment, leading to poor risk management:

My relatives worrying that I might be at risk driving my Toyota Matrix. Even if it was on the recall list (it was not), the chance of an accident, using the most extreme figures is only about 2% more than any other car. While my motorcycle is 500% more dangerous than a car, using statistics gathered from traffic accidents. Logically, I would be much safer in the Toyota.

I was visiting the shopping mall yesterday, where there are two small wind turbines on the roof. People were up in arms when they installed these turbines, afraid apparently that a blade might fly off an injure someone. I guess that likelihood would be about 1 in 100,000,000. But nobody seems concerned at all about the fast moving cars everywhere in the parking lot, posing a much greater danger to pedestrians and their children than those small blades ever would. I would certainly not step off the curb to get away from the wind turbines, and put myself in front of the traffic. So why the protest over the wind turbines but not the cars?

Picture: Saturday Night Live skit illustrating the risk assessment of driving a Toyota. By the way, it seems that the press has now forgotten about Toyota in the wake of BP's oil spill. And so the fear of driving a Toyota subsides, and so do the number of reported unintended accelerations.

Worrying about Motorcycle Safety for Others

This may be a stupid thing to say, but I now seem to worry more about other people being safe, than I do for my own safety. I suppose it may be natural, as my wife and all three of my sons ride motorcycles. But keeping myself safe is one thing. Keeping other people safe is quite different, and up until today I did not have any idea how to do it.

Also, I have been riding a motorcycle for forty years now without an accident, and the suspense alone is killing me. And until three years ago, I had not even had a car accident ever since my first accident, where I rammed a police car, and that was 46 years ago. Since then, up to now at least, my driving habits seemed have proven themselves.

But one thing I do know is that I am not able to impart this wisdom (or luck, depending on how you see it) to other people. Other people I know have gotten into accidents, some with serious consequences.

A few weeks ago, Michael got a bee in his helmet and, with that distraction, crashed the bike into a curb which resulted in a fall and a bent engine crash guard. As we were trying to straighten it out yesterday, I started thinking it must have taken a lot of force to bend the crash guard, because we could not straighten it. It could have been a nasty accident if his foot got in the way and broke the fall instead of that mangled crash guard. Then today at the motorcycle shop, I spotted a display of motorcycle charms called Biker Bells. If you hang one on your motorcycle it wards off evil spirits. Michael noticed some had skulls on them, and I speculated maybe there were some charms to attract evil spirits and other to ward them off.

Michael and I have a different way of looking at the world, and of course our approach to motorcycle safety is also different. What works for me is science and reason. His way is more mystical. He may argue that for all our science and reason, we know practically nothing of the workings of the human brain. For all we know, there may be some mysterious force in the universe that the brain channels for its energy if we think in certain ways.

For example, why is it that patients in medical drug experiments experience the "placebo" effect. That is where a patient believes they are being treated with a drug, and so they get well even though the experimental "drug" they were given was a fake tablet?

So this gave me a brilliant idea. Charms to ward off evil spirits would not work for me, or might even go the other way and attract evil spirits. But maybe other people respond positively. It is not impossible that a "charm" installed on the motorcycle might actually have some mysterious effect on the mind that might result in no more spills, just like the placebo effect. Maybe its worth a shot.

http://www4.dealtime.com/xCC-gremlin_bell-hot_leathers
http://www.nbleather.com/skullbikerbell.html

Disclaimer I am not selling these products, and the opinions I expressed in this blog are not necessarily the opinions of the Lost Motorcyclist Blog editor, who is me.

There are Limits to Human Intelligence

"We have met the enemy and he is us" has got to be one of my favourite quotes of all time, by cartoonist Walt Kelly who drew the cartoon Pogo.

The meaning is that we are our own worst enemy, or that we do things that ultimately hurt ourselves. It's not like we set out to be our own worst enemy, we probably get there by degrees and through inattention or pure stupidity.

So here is an article "Human Failings Led to Oil Disaster" about how the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was likely caused by human error. And not just one error, but a series of errors that could be referred to as systemic human failure.

In the article is an analysis of typical failures, and mention is made of other large scale human failings, the Financial Meltdown of 2008, and the Three Mile Island nuclear accident. It's interesting that while one individual human error is hard to predict, it seems like large scale systemic human failure might be quite predictable.

"This isn’t just about oil. It’s a challenge for people living in an imponderably complex technical society."

New York Times

We had our own massive failure in Ontario back in 1997. Actually, like all massive human failures it started before 1997, but the whistle was blown and the plug was pulled in August 1997. Ontario Hydro, after a run of embarrassing accidents, and finding drug paraphernalia in the control rooms of their nuclear reactors, had called for an independent assessment of the situation, and was persuaded to shut down most of the nuclear power system indefinitely. The verdict, reduced to it's simplest form, was that normal Canadians could not be expected to run something as complicated and dangerous as a nuclear generating system safely.

http://www.ccnr.org/nucaware_hydroletter.html

http://www.encyclopediecanadienne.ca/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=M1ARTM0011388

The shutdown was huge, and cost Ontario taxpayers billions of dollars, and was more or less the end of nuclear power in Canada.

The cartoon series called "The Simpson's" was based on and around the operation of a nuclear power plant. Homer, pictured above, is the main character, and one of the all time stupidest characters to ever lead a normal life in a cartoon, was the employee in charge of the nuclear reactor's control panel. And for all his stupidity, Homer's behaviour was not really outside the bounds of what you might expect to see in normal people you see in the street, not to mention neighbours, friends, even relatives.

I think there are many more examples of these large scale mental breakdowns, but how about this small one. Back in 1961, people drove around without seatbelts or airbags, drunk out of their minds, with the kids rolling around loose in the back of the car. Today, drivers are sober (more often than not), the babies are in their restraining harnesses, and cars are huge "safe" SUV's with air bags and anti-lock brakes. But now the drivers are reading the newspaper or text messaging at 100 km/hr. Although on a personal scale, it proves that the saying from Pogo "We have met the enemy and he is us." is still as true as ever. As we develop ever more complex systems, the most serious problem to face mankind is plain old lack of brainpower.

May, Motorcycle Awareness Month

Apparently May is motorcycle awareness month, although it would be a mistake to think that motorists are more aware of motorcycles this month than other months.

Here is a quote I took from this accident report.

"The northbound motorcycle riders wore helmets, and the driver of the southbound semitrailer truck wore a seat belt, the patrol said. The crash remains under investigation."

There is so much you can figure out just from that very simple sentence. Of course, you can't tell all the grief and suffering that will result from this one moment in time, you can pretty well figure out that no matter what kind of helmets were mentioned, that the two on the motorcycle will be dead, and probably the truck driver would survive, with or without the seatbelt.

Here is another article about motorcycle awareness month.

In this article, there was a brief mention of the responsibility of the motorcycle to be visible to other motorists. Well, I do have my very bright fluorescent jacket. But as was mentioned in the article, cops wearing high visibility vests get killed by accident, and they have the lights on the car flashing that can be seen from four miles away.

There is a down side to my fluorescent jacket, it sometimes attracts too much attention. Once, I caused a commotion when I was mistaken for a traffic cop when I was trying to put money in a parking meter. Second, I am too scared to ride into Toronto during the upcoming G20 Summit for fear of being Molotov cocktailed by the protesters who might think I am the riot police.

To be visible, some other motorcyclists buy extra headlights, and ride with three headlights on all the time. But then if the glare from the two outboard extra headlights masks the flashing turn signals, is that any safer? Some bikers use "flamethrower" headlights that are so bright they turn night into day. But is it really such a good idea to blind oncoming drivers at night?

As I said in one of my earlier blogs. Or actually I guess it was Mr. Miyagi who said it, "Balance is everything". It also works when you are trying to be visible to others.

Picture: from this page on motorcycle lighting

You Can Learn About Motorcycling From Mr. Miyagi

On my website I have a statement "Everything I needed to know about life I learned from a Honda gas tank label". Of course, I was kidding.

But now I am going to make two more statements, and an explanation "Everything I needed to know about riding a motorcycle I learned from the movie Karate Kid IV aka The Next Karate Kid". And everything I needed to know about motorcycle maintenance I learned from the movie McGruber.

Let's start with Karate Kid IV. Riding a motorcycle, like karate, is dangerous especially when you take it to the streets. Threats are everywhere, and to stay safe you need a combination of technique and a sixth sense. Not to mention an ability to remain calm, and to respect the traffic around you, to stay focused, and to be always in control of the situation. Another similarity to the Karate Kid, is that you will generally have four or five opponents against one, and you are by far the smallest out there.

In Karate Kid IV, a small elderly Japanese guy named Mr. Miyagi takes it upon himself to train a girl named Julie in the ways of Karate. There is a lot of Zen involved, and enigmatic instructional techniques. You don't, for example, learn to kick a bag. You learn to "be the bag". Similarly, you cannot learn how to drive defensively, you must learn to "be the traffic". In the movie, this technique of learning and teaching works miraculously for anything, including bowling. A group Tibetan monks who have never bowled before (I assume from the context, but it was never explicitly stated) get in a bowling match for money and win the game easily because of their superior mind control of the ball. They can even get a gutter ball to score a strike.

Many lessons are accompanied by puzzling sayings such as "Ambition without knowledge is like a boat on dry land." That one almost makes sense. But the next one does not "Sun is warm, grass is green." Not at my house it isn't.

These are quotes from Mr. Miyagi again, about traffic conditions and other things, though the dialogue is actually from the first Karate Kid Movie and was not repeated in movie IV, so I put it here

Miyagi: Walk on road, hm? Walk left side, safe. Walk right side, safe. Walk middle, sooner or later
[makes squish gesture]
Miyagi: get squish just like grape. Here, karate, same thing. Either you karate do "yes" or karate do "no." You karate do "guess so,"
[makes squish gesture]
Miyagi: just like grape. Understand?
Daniel: Yeah, I understand.
Miyagi: Now, ready?
Daniel: Yeah, I'm ready.
------------------------
Daniel: Wouldn't a fly swatter be easier?
Miyagi: Man who catch fly with chopstick accomplish anything.
Daniel: Ever catch one?
Miyagi: Not yet.
------------------------------
Daniel: Hey, what kind of belt do you have?
Miyagi: Canvas. JC Penney, $3.98. You like?
Daniel: No, I meant...
Miyagi: In Okinawa, belt mean no need rope to hold up pants.
Miyagi: Daniel-san...
Miyagi: Karate here. [taps his head]
Miyagi: Karate here. [taps his heart]
Miyagi: Karate never here. Understand? [points to his belt]

(My interpretation, that motorcycle safety is not in a helmet or in a motorcycle, it is in your head and heart. Although of course, having a helmet is useful for holding your brains in.)
---------------------------------------------
Daniel: Where am I, this ring over here?
Miyagi: Hai. Number three.
Daniel: What's that guy kneeling like that for?
Miyagi: Don't know.
Daniel: Don't you know anything you can tell me?
Miyagi: Hai. No get hit.
(The parallels to motorcycling are pretty obvious here)
----------------------------------------
Miyagi: [Daniel has just gotten his driver's license and Miyagi has given him a car for his birthday] Just remember, license never replace eye, ear, and brain.
-------------------------------------------------
Miyagi: [repeated line to Daniel] Look eye!, always look eye!
-----------------------------------------------
And one more actually from Karate Kid IV (I guess all the best lines were used up in the first three movies)

Julie: Is there a trick to this--something I haven't figured out?
Miyagi: Pray.
Julie: Pray?
-------------------------------------------


Now for motorcycle maintenance, inspired by MacGruber, a film from the Saturday Night Live skit, based on a parody of a character from the TV series MacGyver. In the original series, MacGyver was always getting out of trouble by making complicated devices out of houshold materials. MacGruber made this funny (or funnier) by exaggerating it out of all proportion, and also having the device fail most of the time in a massive explosion. OK so this is the lesson I got from the movie. Making stuff out of crap is a lot cheaper than buying accessories at the motorcycle shop. Just make sure they don't fail on the road or it's going to be embarrassing.

A Sudden Unintended Acceleration Death Not Blamed on Toyota

As I read this story, involving sudden unintended acceleration, I immediately thought that it could not have been a Toyota. I'm going to assume it was not a Toyota, as there was no mention of the make of car in the story. Instead, Tim Horton's is wondering if then need to revise the design of their Drive-Thrus.

But the simple and sad fact is, that the driver made a mistake. I don't know if they teach this in driver ed classes any more, but surely there must be a rule you do not open a door and lean your head out of a car that is running and in gear with no parking brake on. The fact that the car moved unexpectedly while the driver was reaching the ground to pick up something would not normally be blamed on the car. Nor should it be blamed on the design of the drive-thru, no matter how much I dislike Tim Horton's drive-thrus.

Picture: This is a scale model Tim Horton's, in case you were wondering. And no, we never see that many police cars in the parking lot unless there is a death in the drive-thru lane.

Media Coverage of Lexus Stability Control Recall

Here is a typical report in the press.

"The company, based in Toyota City, Japan, last week halted production and sales of the SUV after Consumer Reports issued a “don’t buy” recommendation, saying the GX 460 may be prone to rolling over in emergency driving conditions. The magazine, published by the non-profit Consumers Union in Yonkers, New York, issued its rating on April 13."

Here is a more complete story.

The fault I see with most reporting about the Lexus is this. There seems to be some kind of underlying assumption that "Stability Control Software" will stop a vehicle from rolling over, which is not true. It is designed to stop a vehicle from losing control going through a turn, by applying brakes on one side of the vehicle to straighten it out in case it begins to slide sideways.

But in no way does the software improve the resistance to rollover, which is a function of height of the centre of gravity and width of the wheel track. And in no way does it improve traction, which depends on the road surface and tire design.

Where stability control is useful is in preventing the car from beginning to slide sideways, which is more complicated than you might think.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stability_control

"When ESC detects loss of steering control, ESC automatically applies the brakes to help "steer" the vehicle where the driver intends to go. Braking is automatically applied to individual wheels, such as the outer front wheel to counter oversteer, or the inner rear wheel to counter understeer. Some ESC systems also reduce engine power until control is regained. Electronic stability control does not improve a vehicle's cornering performance; rather it helps to minimize a loss of control."

So the car, when skidding is detected, will attempt to straighten it out and send it "where you intended it to go", and if you think about it for a second, how does the software know where you intended to go when skidding around a curve? ESC works reasoably well if you are rounding a curve and hit a smallish patch of ice, then end up back on pavement. In that case, the software will do a better job than the human in deciding where you wanted to go, as the loss of control is very sudden, so is the regaining of traction, and the ESC will simply try to get you back on course once traction is re-established. The recovery is very fast, and it is based on where were you going before the skid, and once the skid is recovered, the steering is back in the driver's hands.

Some stability control systems are more "controlling" than others. Some drivers prefer a less intrusive control, these would be the better drivers, with more experience and sharp reflexes. Some drivers would prefer to give more control to the computer, those would be typified by my mother.

When a driver is deliberately provoking a skid, I'm guessing that the ESC would have a harder time telling where the driver intends to go. In some cases, admittedly rare, it may send you straight into a dangerous situation.

Consumer Reports managed provoked a sideways skid in one of their tests. The obvious solution would be to ratchet up the control a bit in the software. I personally would like to see this under driver control rather than pre-set at the factory or the dealers' anyway. Put a knob on the dashboard and let me dial it in myself from 0 (no ESC) to 10 (Max ESC).

The connection between stability control and rollovers is simply this: If you manage to provoke a sideways skid, and the wheels hit a curb while sliding sideways, the car will possibly roll over. This will not be as likely to happen if you hit a curb head on. But the ESC does not actually improve the car's rollover resistance or the traction of the tires, it simply tries to keep the front of the car ahead of the back of the car while skidding. That may keep the car from rolling over, but may not prevent it from going somewhere that you didn't want to go.

The Basics of Vehicle Rollovers

The latest fad towards ever taller cars is the result of a lack of understanding of the physics of driving. It has been pointed out over and over that tall narrow cars tip over more easily than low wide cars. And yet still people buy high narrow cars and drive them at foolish speeds. Obviously we need a refresher course on basic physics.

There is really only one vehicle that can be tall and still go fast, and that is a motorcycle. And that is because the motorcycle leans into the turns. Cars that sit on four wheels cannot lean into a turn and so are vulnerable to a rollover in case the turn is taken too quickly. I think almost everybody knows this rule about tall narrow cars, so let me just add a few caveats to it.

The first caveat is this. Just because you call your car a truck, or even better, an SUV, does not mean it defies the rules of physics. A lot of people who are in denial about the roadholding capabilities of their vehicle think that this law only applies to cars. Just because SUV has the word "Sport" in it does not make that vehicle competent at high speed. And by high speed, I mean a cruising speed for a "normal" low and wide car.

The second caveat is this. You can roll over even on a perfectly straight road. This can happen in any one of a number of ways. First you may leave the road momentarily, getting the right wheels on the gravel shoulder and over correct coming back. Second, you may be hit from the side by another vehicle either in a T-bone or a sideswipe. Third, you may swerve to miss a raccoon in the road. You don't swerve for raccoons you say? OK then child. Fourth, you may get on black ice and spin. I can think of more, but you get the idea.

So now for the physics lesson. Is there actually a law of physics that says a high narrow car will tip over and roll more easily? And is there any way that a car can be designed to be high and narrow but not tip over?

First, lets deal with the concept of "Centre of gravity". In order to simplify calculations on a car, it is useful to find a point where the average of all the mass converges. You can imagine this if you could balance the car on one finger. If so, the centre of gravity would be somewhere on a line directly up from your finger. In order to find exactly where it is on that line, you turn the car on its side, and balance it again on one finger. Now you have a different line through the car, but amazingly, at some point those two lines will cross each other. Where they meet is called the centre of gravity or centre of mass, and it is very useful in determining how the car will act while in motion. By the way, in case you were wondering, this also applies to boats, planes, trains. It does not apply too much to non rigid objects like people, who can change their CG by bending. There are also some cars that can actually change their CG, like the Citreon DS. Also, remember you can change a CG by loading a car. Also, the CG can change if the load shifts, but let's just go with as simple a model as possible for now.

Now look at the diagram, where CG and the pivot are marked. The car will start to roll by rotating around the pivot, in this case one of the wheels, seen from the front (it does not matter which side if they are symmetrical). If the weight of the car is 1000 kg, there will be a force of 1000 kg directly down from the CG, and that will stay the same through the turn. If you are going straight, the sideways or tipping force is zero. This sideways force is called centrifugal force.

Now let's imagine that the car is turning. I don't want to get into a theoretical argument about whether or not centrifugal force does exist. That argument is only for people who have an understanding of physics. For everybody else, the faster you turn the higher the centrifugal force. If you have a whole bunch of cars racing around the same curve at the same speed, they will all have the same "G force". By G force, I mean that if you have a 1000 kg car, with a centrifugal force of .5 G, the car will have a 500 kg force pushing it sideways. If you have a 2000 Kg car at the same speed on the same corner, it will also have a centrifugal force of .5 G, but a sideways force will work out to 1000 kg. for the heavier the car. So you do not gain any advantage by having a big heavy car in going around corners. While you have a heavier weight to keep you down, you also have a proportionally stronger force pushing you out.

Now let's think about the height of the CG. Imagine a rectangle with one corner the CG and the opposite corner the pivot. The important thing is the difference between the height of the rectangle and the width of that rectangle. If the height and width are the same, the car will be able to corner at up to 1 G but no faster, or it tips over.

For the purpose of simplification, I am not considering the limitations in cornering because of tires which will slide instead of roll over on ice and snow, or even bare pavement.  So, not considering the slipping of tires, if the rectangle is half as high as it is wide, the car can corner at 2 Gs before flipping over. And if the rectangle is twice as high as it is wide, the car can only corner at one half G before it rolls over.

The only real advantage you can have in not rolling over, is to keep the CG low compared to the width of the tires.

Sudden Unintended Acceleration Made Simple

Ironically, the invention of the first motor vehicle was seen as a solution to the old problem of runaway acceleration. Back in the days of the cowboys, it was a real problem to halt a runaway team of horses. The brakes were just a stick rubbing on the wheel to stop the coach from running into the back of the horse on a downhill. One solution of course was to climb on the backs of the galloping horses, and walk your way to the front and grab the head of the lead horse, who usually had the bit between his teeth. Another way was to use a gun, but that involved killing one or more of the horses. It was better than killing all the passengers.

I noticed during the congressional hearings, that some representatives asking questions were completely unaware that runaway acceleration has always been with us. Runaway acceleration is not an exclusive Toyota problem, and reappeared soon after the horseless carriage was invented. It also does not apply only to Toyota. Just two weeks ago my sister had a case in her 2003 Honda Civic.

Even in the days of horses, runaway acceleration was an intermittent problem, and so it is often with computer controlled cars. You cannot fix a problem that is rare, intermittent, and leaves no trace, in the way you can fix a problem of outright failure like a fallen bridge. Intermittent problems are very difficult to fix, because they usually function correctly when being analysed.

Highly publicised intermittent problems tend to encourage false reports, which further hampers the investigation. Eyewitness accounts can be inaccurate and misleading.

You can't solve an intermittent problem by completely tearing apart one or more cars. From a purely scientific, logical point of view, you should sort the problems into various categories, and resist the temptation to blame evil spells or magic.

A runaway acceleration reports might fall into one of these categories:

• Driver pressed accelerator instead of brake by mistake
  
• Accelerator got caught in floor mat or under some other object left on floor (such as 500 page drivers' manual)
  
• Accelerator mechanism stuck at pedal hinge
• Stuck linkage or cable (if old style connection) to the throttle on the engine
  
• stuck/iced throttle plate on the engine
• Software logic error glitch within the engine management computer (if new fly by wire system) 
• External radio frequency interference upsets engine management computer
• Driver accidentally set cruise control on high speed
  
• Cruise control fault resulting in acceleration
• Driver had an accident by own fault, but sincerely believes the car "ran away" on its own
• Driver had an accident by own fault, is consciously lying, in order to avoid responsibility
  
• Driver deliberately rammed something, and is using runaway acceleration as an excuse
• The accident is blamed on runaway acceleration but is clearly something else (e.g. swerving suddenly off the road)
• Nothing at all happened, but driver reports it to seek attention, or to hurt the car company, or to make a political statement
  

The various safety backups failed to prevent the accident
- There was no time to try to control the car (close quarters)
- Brakes failed to slow car at all
- Brakes initially worked, but eventually gave out and burned up
- Brake/throttle interlock failed (if so equipped)
- Shifting car to neutral was not possible/not tried
- turning engine off was not possible/ not tried.
- Car driver panicked no action was taken
- driver panicked in stressful situation, acted irrationally and made things worse

Picture: I photoshopped it to look like a runaway stagecoach with the outrider preparing to stop the horse by other means.

David Gilbert Experiment on Toyota Throttle

A new argument has come up in the Toyota sudden unintended acceleration problem. (SUI). Professor David Gilbert of Sanford University has found a way to produce acceleration in a Toyota without recording a fault code in the engine. This test was done in a dramatization for ABC News, where it was claimed that this would not happen with any other automaker's fly by wire throttle system.

Toyota came back with results for several other automakers, where they showed that same thing happened on other fly by wire systems.

I'm certainly not surprised, since the way Gilbert rigged the system involved a 5 volt source, cutting several wires and reconnecting them with a specific resistor. In other words, simply reproducing a valid electrical signal to the engine without using the supplied gas pedal.

Toyota also pointed out that Gilbert's research was funded by the trial lawyers hoping to sue Toyota for billions of dollars in damages.

The discussions are found on these two web sites below, along with many comments that are actually more interesting than the work Gilbert did. By that I mean, Gilbert provided some insight into the inner workings of the Toyota engine management system. I did not know that they had a fault code set in case of a short in the throttle pedal, but it's quite logical that there should be one. But it is even more interesting to examine the many "brain faults" in the comments, reminding us that this is still essentially a case of mass hysteria. And even if one day it turns out that they find a real flaw that causes the Toyotas to accelerate, this issue will still be a great case study in mass hysteria, because of the number and variety of flawed arguments being presented.

Jalopnik and Autoblog

It is impossible to pick out a typical comment from online readers, but I felt like this one deserved to be printed in this blog simply because the Academy awards were presented last weekend, and I'm in an award giving mood. So this gets the Oscar for most incomprehensible comment in the category of self proclaimed professional expert in the online Toyota SUI debate. It was on the Jalopnik site, and you may have missed it because it was hidden, and also was in reply to another comment about the quality of education at SIUC (Southern Indiana University at Carbondale Home of the fighting Salukis). It is also quite instructive to see how far off topic people can get, but in this case, the name Sanford University carries a lot of weight in the minds of impressionable people, so I guess it was relevant to comment on whether or not Sanford was a legitimate institution of learning because one of the commenters applications was rejected. Also, I don't want to know what a Saluki is.

 BY mzs

03/08/10

@beercheck: It is indeed a fine school.

There still is something I do not get, why not reverse the VDC of one of the sensors, or run it through a logarithmic integrator. That way a bunch of this would could be noticed by the ECM. Also both are Hall effect sensors in a non shielded part and could pickup the same interference. Why not shield it or have one sensor be an optical slit counter? Another option would have been to use TP and a serial interconnect with parity, cksum, or CRC.

But my bet is that the trouble was in the firmware of the ECM. My guess is that the error cases were not exercised thoroughly enough in testing. My hunch is that there is a problem where when the ECU gets unlucky and gets an error condition under just the right conditions there is an off-by-one sort of bug in some innocuous error logging code and the ECM goes off into an infinite loop twiddling the word it needs to for the watchdog timer to think it is making forward progress. During this time the throttle is where it last was.

I say this since I had to put in logarithmic integrators, reverse voltage, use optical slit counters, add hardware watch dog timers, use R-485 then safety EPLC that supposedly would bring DACs to 0VDC automatically, and still had to fix a bug much like I described which was finally the actual mistake that cured that blasted system. I do industrial controls software for a living.

There is a possibility that America is approaching a point where buying a car becomes impossible for the middle and lower class. Like health care, where costs went up and access was reduced with the excessive lawsuits against doctors. Today, Americans may think that destroying Toyota will be good for them, but they do not realize that all car makers are in the same boat, and if you can destroy one car maker without proof of a fault, you can do the same to the rest of the low-cost car makers. Every car maker is trying to cut production costs, every one is forced to use electronics instead of mechanical linkages to save money and meet new standards. None will ever make a fool proof car.

There are a couple of other issues also pushing us away from universal car transportation. Running out of oil is one, global warming is the other. And now we can add a few more. Ever more incompetent drivers, greedy trial lawyers, and the never to be underestimated effect of mass hysteria.

Have We Got Enough Safety Gimmicks Yet?

One of the driving forces in making cars more complicated, is in the proliferation of safety devices. I guess it gets tiresome repeating this, but 50 years ago, these things were unheard of. You simply learned to drive properly or you had an accident and died. And it seems with all the safety improvements, we still have not significantly reduced the carnage on the roads.

We can learn something from the current Toyota crisis. Most experts seem to agree that the Toyotas lack a safety device that would bring the engine down to idle if the brake is pressed. Never mind the fact that when I was a teenager, pressing the brake and throttle at the same time in my father's V8 engined Dodge was the standard way to stage for the green light. Not at the drag strip, at the only traffic light in town, which luckily had two lanes set up going the same direction. When he was not in the car of course, and only if there was another driver in the next lane who needed to be out-accelerated.

So today, our cars are getting more and more safety features. Toyota has not been lagging behind in this regard, they were actually heavily involved in traction control systems. Instead of worrying about the occasional runaway acceleration, the Toyota safety researchers were working on the far more common problem of front wheel drive cars losing control on corners, especially on wet or icy roads, or with mediocre tires. And just as Toyota was rolling out stability control systems on every car down to the Yaris, they got hit with the runaway acceleration hysteria. Suddenly all that work on stability is forgotten, and any lives they might have saved through stability control is ignored because of other lives lost in runaway acceleration. I would personally prefer them to work on the stability control, and hopefully that is working now.

The fact that people in runaway Toyotas have died because of two other safety features is typically ironic. The reason that drivers can't turn off the engine of a runaway car, is because of the safety feature that prevents drivers from accidentally switching off the engine while driving. That safety feature is a built-in 3 second delay on the button, to make sure you really want to shut off the engine while driving. Similarly, the extra move of the gear shift lever needed to get it in neutral, is just to make sure you don't knock the lever into neutral accidentally while reaching for your CD collection on the floor.

Some other safety features that famously cause death are air bags, and seat belts that held people in the cars while they burned to death.

But basically the march of progress goes like this. One person develops an idea that can save lives. The idea is adopted by a car maker, as an extra safety feature. Other car makers also adopt the idea. Finally the last car makers to adopt the idea are forced into it, because people expect this feature to save their bacon, and can no longer drive safely without it. So the cars without this feature are looked on as almost defective. That how progress in safety sweeps everyone along. Today, tire pressure monitoring systems are an extra feature. Tomorrow, any car without them will be defective, because after all how could you expect a driver to check the tire pressure themselves, or even to notice a tire that looks low? What else might be mandatory? Backup cameras, for one. Anyone ever backed up over a child out there? You know it happens. There's actually lots more of these devices, the inventor's imagination is infinite.

Unfortunately, safety devices will never replace driver competence, as long as the driver is allowed to access the controls at any time. Often the only effect of the safety device is to reduce one type of accidental death while increasing another. And drivers who "feel safe" tend to drive more recklessly. This is one reason why this Toyota recall is bothering me. I keep hearing other people talking about driving "safe" American cars, and that Toyotas are "death traps". This is a classic case of false sense of security, which is actually one of the greatest dangers on the road.

Brakes 101

In 1969, the Honda CB750 motorcycle appeared on the market. It had two features that revolutionized motorcycling at the time. One was a four cylinder engine, and the other was a hydraulic disk brake. Of the two, I would argue that the hydraulic disk brake was more important. Honda did not have the first four cylinder engine, and today most motorcycles are not four cylinders. But you would be hard pressed to find any two-wheel motorized vehicle built today that does not have a hydraulic disk brake.

That introduces the subject of this entry, which is brakes. Until the Toyota runaway acceleration problem, I had no idea how many people did not understand the concept of brakes on a motor vehicle. When I was young, brakes failed so often that everybody knew how they worked. I guess when stuff fails, that's when you really find out how it works.

My first accident on my Honda CD175 was caused by brake failure. (Of course it could not have been driver error, because I was driving). I had gone down to the bar to pick up a "case of 24" (translation for non Canadians: beer) and had it strapped to the back seat. As I was heading home, and naturally this had to be right in front of the school, a goat jumped out in the road right in front of me, I hit the brakes. The front wheel locked up in the gravel and I went down. The damages were 5 broken bottles, and some road rash on my knees. My hands were OK because they were wrapped around the case of beer to protect it, or even more bottles would have broken. Several of my students witnesses the horrific crash and came over to help. Later on I discovered that the back brake was not working, so all the braking force was on the front, and that's why it skidded unexpectedly.

The Honda CD175's front brake was the now-obsolete cable operated drum with a single leading shoe. The rear was the same, but a little smaller and rod operated. As I tried to fix my rear brakes, I discovered this interesting fact. If you wash brake shoes in kerosene, they will be totally useless. But over the years I had that bike, and my next one, I did discover how to make those drum brakes work reasonably well. The most important thing to remember is lubrication. Some places need lubrication, and some cannot function if there is any lubrication at all. And in some places the "must lubricate" bits are alarmingly close to the "No lubricate" bits. Brake shoes, by the way, are "no lubricate" bits. And in case you have not guessed, kerosene is a lubricant. So is water.

Back in 2002, I was at the motorcycle rally in Sturgis South Dakota on my BMW, and I spotted an old guy pull into the campsite riding a Honda CB160, the precursor to my CD175. This immediately got my attention, and I went over to speak to him. I told him I had a CD175, and he said "You must mean the CB175", because that was by far the most popular of the two in the USA. No, I replied, I mean the CD with one carburetor. At that point, we seemed to connect, and next thing I knew he offered me his CB160 to go for a ride up the mountain road right next to the campsite, which I accepted. I reached the top with no sweat, and turned to go back, but at the first hairpin turn, I realized: "NO BRAKES". I manged to make it all the way back down, which was really not too scary once you are aware that you actually have no brakes. When I handed him back the bike, I thanked him and told him what a great ride it was, and casually mentioned that there were no brakes, which seemed odd since he had ridden the bike here from Salt Lake City, a good 500 miles. His response was "I thought you would have known. None of those bikes have any brakes". And I guess he should know because he had over 50 old vintage bikes. So it really was tricky to make those brakes work properly.

But apparently not everybody is an amateur mechanic like myself, and many people do not understand the basic principles of how a brake works, or even how to spell it. So here it is in course I call Brakes 101.

A brake uses friction to convert the vehicle's forward motion to heat. A car that is moving forward at speed has a lot of energy, and something must be done to that energy if you want the car to stop. This is because of a law of physics we call "The Law of Conservation of Energy". In other words, there is no device that can either create energy out of nothing, or make energy disappear into nothing. An engine makes forward motion energy from the energy stored in gasoline. The brakes removed forward motion energy by turning it into heat energy. It would be real nice if brakes could turn forward motion energy into gasoline energy, but that's not how it works yet. Although Toyota's hybrids are kind of working on that principle, using battery energy.

Hopefully this point is well understood, because it may save your life one day.

Brakes are designed to absorb a certain amount of motion energy as heat, and as they work they heat up, and their temperature rises. They are usually designed so that they can stop a car from top speed without getting too hot. And they can do that on a hot day, with the car loaded down with passengers, and going down hill. And they can repeat the entire test back to back a couple of times. But when they get too hot, eventually they will stop working. Usually the first thing to go is the brake fluid, which is a type of oil that is designed to transmit your foot pedal pressure to the brake pads that squeeze the rotating disk. Once this oil evaporates, or burns up, your brakes stop working. Or if the brake friction pads burst into flames, your brakes will suffer serious damage. Or if any metal thing melts down or lets go under pressure. You have to understand that the brakes will still work even when they are really hot, but there are ways to get them too hot and then, by definition, they will fail.

Now how can they get too hot? Say you are at the top of a 20 mile downhill run, pulling a big trailer. And you decide to hold the speed of the car with the brakes alone, in neutral, not using the engine. You may be OK for a mile or two, but you will smell burning at some point. Then your brakes are getting close to their limit.

Another way to make them fail, is to push the throttle all the way down at 60 mph, but hold your speed steady using the brakes. That would be worse than a 20 mile downhill run, especially with a powerful engine.

Now here is a strange part. If your car is standing still, and you apply the brakes really hard, the engine will not be able to get the car moving. Even with an automatic transmission in drive, you can keep your foot to the floor on the accelerator, and the brakes will not even begin to warm up. But your transmission will. That's because as the brakes are stopped, they are not creating friction or heat. But the energy from the engine has to go somewhere, and the only place to go is the transmission. Pretty soon your transmission will blow up. So that's a little tip for you people who want to do that type of thing just to see what blows up first.

If your car suddenly goes to full throttle and you can't control the engine, you can use the brakes to stop the car. But remember you only have a certain amount of time. The longer you drag the brakes before you pull off the road and stop, the more energy the brakes are absorbing, and some time soon they will reach the limit. Get stopped quickly or flames will be coming from the wheels, and your brakes will be totally useless, with the engine still pulling hard. Once that happens, you better know how to shut off the engine or how to put it in neutral or you could be the next victim of unintended acceleration. My advice is to point the car at some bushes or hedges or maybe a corn field. Not over a cliff or into a telephone pole. If you can get the car to roll over gently in the corn field by pulling a U-Turn as it slows down, you will stop, because the driving wheels will be spinning uselessly in the air. It's another way to put the car in neutral if you can't figure out how to use that stick between the front seats.

And another safety tip: Do not drive along with your foot always on the brake.  First, the rear bake light will be on all the time, meaning it is not signaling any useful information.  Secondly you are pre-heating your brakes, and now you understand why that is NOT good.  Try to not use the brakes unless you need them. And when you do need them, get on the brakes quickly and knock off some speed as soon as possible.  That's how brakes are most effective.

Picture: This is called a "Stoppie" as opposed to a "Wheelie". It is a stunt that uses the front brake to lift the rear of a moving motorcycle off the ground. Brakes did not do this back in the sixties.  Do I really need to add that this stunt is dangerous?

Little Light at the End of the Tunnel for Toyota

Some new ideas have been coming out about Toyota's problems, so just to do an update.

First, many Toyota owners have been discouraged about the resale price of their vehicles. Apparently somebody figured out that there has been a 4% drop in resale value of Toyotas that can be blamed on their acceleration problems. I'm not particularly worried, as generally I drive a car into the ground. And Toyota resale prices were probably a little too high anyway. When I bought my Toyota, I could get a new Matrix cheaper than a used one. The used one had some extra features, while my new one was the base model with no options, but still, I won't pay more money for a used car.

I think Toyota is going to have to change their image a bit. I used to think this was the car grandmothers would drive, and all the young, hip, people were driving the "Zoom Zoom" Mazdas. But with the throttle problems everything has changed. Toyotas are now the cars for the thrill seekers, the risk takers. Mazdas and Hondas have become the cars of choice for grannies,nannies and soccer moms. If I might suggest a slogan for Toyota to go with their new market demographics: "Oh what a feeling and get the **** out of the way!". Mazda is obviously going to have to come up with a new slogan, as "Zoom Zoom" just makes them look like they wish they came up with the stuck throttle idea first.

A few people have been posting their own thoughts on youtube about what might be causing the unintended acceleration. As far as I know, Toyota has never really been able to prove what was causing this. The floor mat theory was obviously just guesswork, because by the time they checked the wrecked car in the Santee crash, the floor mat was not actually blocking the pedal any more. And of course, there was nothing wrong with the engine control unit (ECU) or the throttle pedal mechanism either. (or the brakes, except for being burned out from being dragged at 180 kph for five or ten minutes.)

One idea put forward was radio frequency interference, for example from a cell phone. Toyota throttles now operate on a principle similar to modern airplanes, which is called "fly by wire". Instead of a push/pull cable going to the throttle, there is an electrical wire from the gas pedal to the ECU. The ECU is a computer that actually controls the engine speed. The ECU interprets a signal that comes from the pedal to decide what speed is desired.

The idea is that if the ECU were to receive a "fake signal" or interference from a cell phone (for example), that once in a while the cell phone signal may match a digital signal, and the computer may interpret this as an order to set the speed at maximum acceleration. This theory is reinforced by the notion that the FCC no longer requires RF shielding on many electrical components. And the airlines worry about RF interference enough to tell passengers to turn off their cell phones while in flight.

This theory could explain why Toyota has not been able to trace the problem, if it comes from random external radio frequency interference. But, Toyota does have RF shielding on their ECU. Secondly, I think the signal from the pedal to the ecu is probably analog, not digital. And even if it was a digital signal, and vulnerable to interference from random cell phone signals, you might expect that at least half the time it would result in a sudden deceleration. As far as I know, no "sudden deceleration" problems have even been reported. Anyway, I'll let the people at Toyota mull that one over, if they haven't already thought of it.

(Toyota engine management system from Toyota Motors)

Some other youtuber dropped the throttle pedal mechanism in freezing water, and put it in an oven at 250 deg. F, and it continued working without sticking both times. Basically what you would expect from Toyota.

I'm sure when Toyota was doing this kind of testing, that they were probably looking at the signals coming from the wire, and not just checking if the pedal was sticking or not. Yes, I am pretty sure Toyota does this kind of testing, because you don't build a car that works this well without doing some serious testing. Even American carmakers do that.

Since almost all these problems are happening in the USA, I decided that Toyota needs to explain the problem in a way that some Americans understand better than science. For the people who believe in pacts with the devil, evil spells and miracles, offer to install a fish symbol on the trunk of their cars. And certainly remove any of those fishes with little feet and the word DARWIN inside. To help avoid any future problems of sudden unintended acceleration, advise them to read the Toyota owners manual literally, as if it were the inspired word of God (especially the part about how to shift into neutral, and how to shut off the engine). Tell them if they have any more problems with their Toyota, it will be taken as indication that they have made a pact with the devil. That should cut down on the complaints.

To wrap up this episode of the Toyota saga, our Prime Minister, Stephen Harper has decided to hold his own inquiry into the Toyota throttle problem. I was not aware that any of these problems had happened in Canada, but Stephen seems to feel better if he is mimicking stuff happening in the USA, so let him have his fun.