Quote:
Originally Posted by wraymond
Wow. According to online news feeds a Jaguar Ipace was brought to a halt by police cars on the M25 on Wesnesday.
It was out of control, with the terrified driver calling the police for help. Speeding at 90 mph and the driver unable to stop it or reduce speed. The police driver overtook and got in front, allowed the distance between them to gradually reduce until touching, and another police car got behind it. They forced it to stop without crashing.
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I wonder if this is actually true, and not a story that "went viral". I've heard the very same story two or three times over the years but in those cases they were internal combustion cars. I think one story was about one or more Ford models that ran away, and the other affected Toyota.
My very strong suspicion is that those Ford and Toyota events never actually happened, but several people claim it did, either for their 15 minutes of Internet fame, or hoping for lots of lovely money in compensation.
Take this current report. The police car used its brakes to stop the car, yes? So the brakes were sufficient to overcome the Ipace motor, agreed? In that case, surely the driver could have used his own brakes to the same effect.
Also, why was it travelling at 90mph? I can just about imagine a fault condition that put the motor up to full power, but 90mph is a suspicious number to me. It's too convenient - not fast enough to be truly dangerous (as it would be if it were stuck at its maximum speed), but it's fast enough to make a dramatic story. It's also slow enough to make the police car rescue feasible. I don't think it would have been feasible at the Ipace's maximum speed.
The problem I have is that several things have to fail at the same time to make this event feasible, and simultaneous failures like this are very rare.
1/ Something would need to be wrong with the sensing of the throttle pedal position.
2/ At the same time, something would need to stop the main on/off switch from working.
3/ And also at the same time the brakes would have to fail.
Jaguar aren't idiots - there will be extensive fail-safe measures built in to the car. I smell the reek of b u l l s h i t here. Some guy wants his moment in the spotlight, or maybe wants some money from Jaguar.
I MIGHT BE WRONG! But I want to express my doubts all the same.