Putting a car in Neutral might save your life

More than a few readers were surprised when our tests proved that a car’s brakes may not be enough to stop a car with a stuck throttle while traveling at highway speeds. A horrific fatal crash in Southern California last August drew attention to the possibility that a misplaced floor-mat could jam a car’s throttle down. Other culprits can cause the same problem, including a stuck cable or linkage or malfunctioning throttle body. Whatever the cause of runaway acceleration, there’s a simple solution that could save your life.

Here’s all you have to do:

1. Move the transmission to Neutral.
2. Use the brakes to come to a stop safely on the side (or off) the road
3. Shut off the engine with the transmission in Neutral
4. Put the car into Park

Most people who own cars with an automatic transmission have never had a reason to select Neutral, and some modern gear selectors are unconventional enough to cause confusion. (Try it with a new BMW or Mercedes-Benz!) A life-or-death situation might not be the best time to figure out how to do it.

Learn how
In a large empty parking lot or other safe area, practice sliding your gear lever into Neutral while driving at a low speed. That way, you will know how to handle a stuck-throttle emergency if one should ever arise. If the police officer whose Lexus ran out of control and burned last August had thought to slip the transmission into Neutral, the chances are that he and his family would have survived.

Engine shut-down is a worse choice
Shutting off the engine during an uncontrollable acceleration is another option, but we recommend against that. First, killing the engine will not allow you to slow down any sooner than shifting to Neutral will. Second, you can lose power steering assist, making the car difficult to control. And finally, if you should manage to turn the key all the way off, that could lock the steering wheel mechanism, making a safe stop all but impossible.

Bottom line
By practicing how to shift into Neutral and even how to make a panic, ABS-actuating stop, you will be better prepared for a scenario you will hopefully never face. But if you do, hopefully you can remain calm and stop the vehicle safely.

—Jake Fisher

Related:
Putting stuck floor mat survival strategies to the test
Floor mat survey reveals problem with all-weather mats
Toyota and Lexus floor mat recall is official
Toyota advises 3.8 million Lexus and Toyota owners to remove floor mats
Misaligned floor mat may have caused calamity

Comments

[CyCarConsulting]

And let's hope the rev limiter works

[Joshua James]

The amount of training required to drive a car is a joke.

I was in an accident once and I had to get out of my car and help the other person turn off their car. They didn't know how. Completely unprepared...

We need far better training in place before we let anyone drive. Unfortunately there isn't money in it, so accidents keep happening and people keep dying. Oh well, at least its cheaper that way.

Everyone should have experience with their car in a empty wet parking lot doing stupid things. You should experience a complete spin and slides before you're out on the open road. Pilots have to stall planes and practice landing without power... Far less people die in airplanes, and there is far more training to fly. If drivers had to endure the same training a pilot does I think we'd all be far safer!

[Bruce Flinn]

Here is a related tip that saved my daughter from being totally crushed when a tracker trailer traveling 50 mph ran into the back her stopped car.

She was on a two lane road and had to stop to make a left turn and wait for an opening in on coming traffic before making her turn. Her car was a little Mazda MX3 two door hatchback with a manual transmission. She saw that the truck was not slowing down and realized she was going to be hit so she shifted into neutral took her foot off the brake and clutch and let the impact of the truck push her forward. If she had kept her feet on the clutch and brake and let the car stay in first when the truck hit her her legs would have taken the brunt of the impact, the car would have resisted moving forward and the damage to her and the car would have been much more serious.

[Brian]

I don't think it matters whether you shift into neutral or kill the engine. More than likely, shifting into neutral with your engine running at high rpms will probably blow the engine anyways...

[Sam W. Keenon]

Before our all wise government mandated that the ignition switch lock the steering, it was easy to just shut the engine off under these circumstances. Then you also got the benefit of some braking by athe transmission.

[JIM888]

2007 Avalon XLS, SUDDEN UNINTENDED ACCELERATION
Options: 4 Wheel ABS w/Electronic Brakeforce Distribution (EBD)
Vehicle Stability Control (VSC) and Traction Control (TRAC) w/Brake Assist (BA)

Problem: SEVERE SAFETY DEFECT
Description: At slow speeds, when gently applying the brakes, the engine goes to “full throttle”.

Incident 1) We had driven to my sister's home, about a 5 hour drive. This was our first ‘road trip’ out of town.

The next morning, I was repositioning the car on the double wide driveway of my sister’s condo. I backed the car straight back into the street, about 20 feet, and with my brother-in-law standing just inside the garage to help me reposition the car to the right slightly, about 1 ½ feet, I slowly drove the car back into his driveway to within 2 or 3 feet of the garage. The garage door was open and he was directly in front of my car. The temperature at the time of the safety problem was about 35 degrees.

When I applied the brakes, the engine immediately went to full throttle and I had to apply the brakes very hard while turning off the engine. I do not remember whether or not I turned off the ignition first or took the transmission out of drive. This all happened too fast.

For a split second, I wondered whether I had my foot on the brake or gas pedal. Very luckily, I had my foot on the brake and continued braking, otherwise I believe that I would have run over my brother-in-law and severely damaged both his garage and my car.

I contacted their local Toyota Dealer after they opened the next morning to have them check for this problem. Their technical specialist checked for existing Service Bulletins and the Service Manager called me back to say "they could not find anything of this type reported". He also suggested that I start the car and observe whether or not the ‘Check Engine’ light was on. It was not. There were no other extraordinary lights either.

Since I had used ‘cruise control’ many times on the way to Cedar Rapids, I wondered if for some reason it was involved. When the problem occurred, I did not have time to look. Besides, I had used the brakes several times after entering town which should have disengaged cruise control. Also, I did not touch the cruise control lever when re-parking. I had no trouble pulling up into the driveway, just when I applied the brakes.

I did not drive my car again until we left to return to our home.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Incidents 2 & 3) On Saturday, December 23, 2006, we went downtown to meet family at a restaurant, arriving at about 11:45 AM.

While in the downtown area where the speed limit is 20 MPH and traffic was congested (moving slowly), this same safety defect occurred TWICE within TWO blocks. The first was when stopping behind a stopped car, and the second was when I stopped to wait for another car to pull out of it’s parking place.

BOTH TIMES, when I began to gently apply the brakes to stop, the engine went to “FULL THROTTLE” with HEAVY SMOKE or exhaust observed behind our vehicle. I had to “apply the brakes as hard as I could” while I first tried to shift out of gear, and then turned off the ignition to shut down the engine. Very luckily, at this slow speed I was able to stop the car before hitting anything. My foot was on the brake pedal NOT the accelerator and nothing was obstructing the accelerator.

I called my local Toyota dealer, to report the problem, was informed that their Service Department was closed, I told them that I was going to “Have my car towed to their lot as I didn't trust this car anymore at all”.

I CONSIDER THIS TO BE A SAFETY PROBLEM OF THE MOST SEVERE TYPE, since I don’t know when it might happen again, who might be driving the car nor under what driving conditions.

THIS PROBLEM COULD GET SOMEONE KILLED, ASIDE FROM DAMAGE TO THE VEHICLE AND ANYTHING ELSE IN THE WAY.

At this juncture, I could not trust this vehicle’s safety, nor do I know what damage might have occurred to my vehicle due to the engine going to “full throttle” while I was breaking hard to avoid an accident.

The dealer's service department said they didn't find any "codes" in the cars diagnostic, and that it was possibly "driver error".

We parked the car for three months as we were afaid after reading MANY reports of this same problem across many Toyota and Lexus models.

During these three months we were forced to go though Toyota's arbitration (a real joke) and $900.00 in lawyer’s fees. we entered the arbitration very well prepared with printouts of the MANY NHTSA entries, information from a book dealing with this problem. The Regional Reps were there and would not even accept a copy of all the information we had found – I think they did not want to touch anything they couldn’t leave as driver error. This meeting left us with NO ACTION that we could take – we couldn’t sell or trade this vehicle since we knew there was a severe problem with it.

We eventually traded our 6 month old car back to the dealerto our local dealer (parked for three months) for a duplicate car, paying $3100.00 difference to get rid of the first car. $4000,00 total.

The technical person explained in great details about all of the “error codes” they could post and our car didn’t have any. I asked them TWO simple questions at this point that they could not or would not answer:
“WHY DON’T YOU DIAGNOSTICS IN THEIR COMPUTER HANDLE THE SIUTUATION WHERE THE BRAKING SYSTEM AND ACCELERATION SYSTEM WERE BOTH SENSED HAVE THE BRAKING FUNCTION OVERRIDE THE ACCELERATION and OVERRIDE to produce braking INSTEAD OF ACCELERATION”
and “WHY DON’T THEY CREATE AN ERROR CODE IF THIS SITUATION OCCURS???”

My guess is that then there would be proof of the problem which they don’t have the slightest idea how to solve. TOYOTA - WHY DON”T YOU IMPLEMENT THE TWO POSSIBLE SUGGESTIONS ABOVE?

Sorry this is so long, but everything mentions is pertinent to our experience.

[Mark]

Blown Engine? Having grown up trying to tear up motors, you would be shocked at how much most can tolerate. As mentioned in the first post, many engines now have rev-limiters that intermittently interrupt the ignition system to limit RPM redlining. Engines are over-built these days, hence the 100k mile warranty offers. Worry about your life, not the engine

[Kevin S.]

I put my car in neutral about 100 times a day. (I drive a manual).
In various panic situations its not uncommon at all for people to lose perspective of what is happening. However, I smell a rat somewhere. The number of problems, annually, which will require one to shift into neutral to save their lives are extremely small compared to millions of other actions (driving too fast, too slow, passing on the right, driving while distracted, drunk, etc. etc.) that hurt and kill millions more.
You can't be prepared for everything - sometimes accidents HAPPEN. I am continually disappointed for Consumer Reports trying to prop up the nanny state "for the benefit of the consumer". In my case, I have a much bigger risk of stalling by my own error, causing me to be in a dangerous situation, unable to pull away, then an accidental RPM. I'm also immune to the "where's neutral" concept.

Rule #9. The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself...

[J. Smith]

"And finally, if you should manage to turn the key all the way off, that could lock the steering wheel mechanism, making a safe stop all but impossible."---Are you sure about that? I thought that all modern automobiles (1968+) have has it where you can't lock the steering wheel without it being in park...and I can't imagine someone throwing a car in park while it is moving.

If you put the selector in Neutral, you will not be able to remove the key, let alone lock the steering wheel. Perhaps that was done away with? It has been many years (20+) since I bought a new car, so I'm wondering if that safety feature has been removed in today's cars.