1300 hp mercury comet brake failure crash

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floivanus said:
How would it cost you big time? It wouldn’t in this situation AT ALL.

throttle stuck on a 1,000hp vehicle, no brakes were stopping that situation without decoupling the engine from the rear axle (Neutral or killing engine) as the accident happened the hydraulic brake system was already comprised from driving around with the brakes applied and fighting a sticking throttle.

Would ANY smaller parking brake system, most being cable driven have a fighting chance against 1,000 hp at 40 mph? Nope.

Prove me wrong, jam your throttle at 2200 RPM like the driver said he did, neglect to put the car in N and stop your car with the parking brake, guarantee I can’t get my daily driver civic to stop by the parking brake only.
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He wouldda had "something" and in his case that would have been better than nothing.
 
RustyRatRod said:
He wouldda had "something" and in his case that would have been better than nothing.
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His “something” was already there, a wilwood 4 disc setup fighting against a stuck throttle, an idiot who can’t find neutral and brakes that have been used for a few miles to hold a car that had no business on the road from doing what it eventually did.

It’s a trailer queen that doesn’t have any business being on the road, and wouldn’t pass tech for any track night. Judging by the fact it was running wilwoods, they use an undersized drum for the parking brake, wouldn’t have done a thing when 4 wheel discs weren’t adequate.
 
floivanus said:
His “something” was already there, a wilwood 4 disc setup fighting against a stuck throttle, an idiot who can’t find neutral and brakes that have been used for a few miles to hold a car that had no business on the road from doing what it eventually did.

It’s a trailer queen that doesn’t have any business being on the road, and wouldn’t pass tech for any track night. Judging by the fact it was running wilwoods, they use an undersized drum for the parking brake, wouldn’t have done a thing when 4 wheel discs weren’t adequate.
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You're gettin no argument from me.
 
Well, y'know....reverse pattern manual valve body blah blah blah "it's what race cars use, so it's a good idea to use it on a street car that I just confirmed will never see the track".

Must've been a great build since the owner clearly just loves to drive the car so much. (sarcasm)
Those guys piss me off. They do all that **** and just end up with a car that's no fun to drive.
 
Watched the video a few times and read this entire thread. Everything led up to the crash, but one detail stood out to me. The fact he said that he “had to ride the brakes to drive that slow” with that slow being around 40 mph. Then stating that the throttle was “sticking at 2200 rpm”. With a 1300 horsepower engine and maybe I’m crazy but that 2200 rpm sounds like an idle speed that engine build might actually prefer. The fact he had to ride the brakes in an automatic makes me believe he didn’t have a high enough stall torque converter to even idle around a driveway…

I just spent $800 to replace a factory torque converter in my Duster 340 that makes around 350 to 400 hp because I would have to stand on the brake and let that pull engine rpm down to not take off at what was probably 1000 rpm (no tachometer).

Don’t get me wrong, he knowingly took unnecessary risk upon smelling hot brakes knowing he had been riding them…. And as for evasive actions taken, I did not see a good path to not hit anything. Even if the turn lanes had gotten the green light he would have most like plowed into a car anyway. So the fact he banked on that being an option makes me believe he was still thinking he could “save his car too”. Once he accepted the fate that the car was not going to survive it was too late to make a more proper plan that did not involve plowing into a parked car at 40 mph.

One thing I would have done differently in distress like that is to lay on the horn in hopes to get attention ahead to other drivers at the light so that maybe they have a chance to run the light to not get smashed into at 40 mph…
 
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I see 2 F*#king idiots, unaddressed innocent victims, and 1 ruined cool-assed Comet.
The idle on that mill ain't 2200, the video Phuktard "warns" Us the video may be "graphic" for some AFTER showing the clips of the accident, and those are lightweight drag brakes..not street or road brakes. "They didn't have better brakes 17yrs. ago", are You F×^king kidding Me? I have an ad in the Other Stuff for Sale forum here, both frt. fender caps/extensions for the 1 year only '64 Comet, I will be sure to NOT sell them to this idiot.
 
There's one part of the video where you can hear the idle too high and he blips the throttle and it drops to the correct idle speed, so it wasn't "just" idling at 2200. The throttle was indeed sticking.
 
“Yeah it’s 1300hp”...“ I probably should put bigger brakes on it”... “The throttle is sticking”... “Yeah I smell it, gotta ride the brakes”...
FFS how has this dumbass lived this long?
 
Topless69 said:
“Yeah it’s 1300hp”...“ I probably should put bigger brakes on it”... “The throttle is sticking”... “Yeah I smell it, gotta ride the brakes”...
FFS how has this dumbass lived this long?
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It's those types that outlast everybody else. lol
 
Setting aside the fact that someone was or could have been seriously injured. And in no way do I defend the choices the driver made.
To me it's interesting how it seems to be human nature (myself included) that when an accident happens we go through each moment looking for a way to figure out how it could have been preventented. Or maybe even " how this could never happen to me". Also interesting is how often times it all is boiled down to the person responsible as just being "stupid". That's convenient because nobody wants to believe that some version of this could ever happen to them. And we all like to think that we are all smarter than average. lol.
Another thing I find interesting is how once "stupidity" is deemed the cause of the accident for some it triggers alot of anger. Some people show alot of disdain for those who they consider "stupid". What is the source of all that anger? Is it because they see themselves as a possible victim in the accident? Maybe. If it is possible to see yourself as a victim is it possible to see yourself as the person responsible? Probably not if you believe the person responsible is " stupid" because none of us are stupid. Right?
 
I hear you, I've done several stupid things in my life, but one thing I've never done is knowingly driven any car with a sticking throttle that I had to ride the brakes to keep it slowed down through traffic or anywhere else. I think that is a definition of being stupid.
 
Yup, we're all going to find that one thing that lets us believe that "this could never happen to me". Myself included. lol
 
92b said:
Was he bragging or complaining? lol
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Most definitely bragging.
I`ll give the guy some credit on the restoration though, looked like great body and paint work, but he may have started out with a cherry car. It is a cali. car I`d assume.
I know I`d be devastated, having spent near 10 years on my 52.
 
92b said:
Setting aside the fact that someone was or could have been seriously injured. And in no way do I defend the choices the driver made.
To me it's interesting how it seems to be human nature (myself included) that when an accident happens we go through each moment looking for a way to figure out how it could have been preventented. Or maybe even " how this could never happen to me". Also interesting is how often times it all is boiled down to the person responsible as just being "stupid". That's convenient because nobody wants to believe that some version of this could ever happen to them. And we all like to think that we are all smarter than average. lol.
Another thing I find interesting is how once "stupidity" is deemed the cause of the accident for some it triggers alot of anger. Some people show alot of disdain for those who they consider "stupid". What is the source of all that anger? Is it because they see themselves as a possible victim in the accident? Maybe. If it is possible to see yourself as a victim is it possible to see yourself as the person responsible? Probably not if you believe the person responsible is " stupid" because none of us are stupid. Right?
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It's all the frustration over knowing this was 100% preventable, didn't have to happen, shouldn't have happened. Standard practice for most people would prevent this kind of thing. Many of us like to think that cars built at 'this level' come with some increased ability from the crew building them, which makes the frustration worse IMO.

There's no defending what these yahoos did. The car was unsafe to operate anywhere. A car with a sticking accelerator is dangerous in every instance. I would be nervous with it even running in the garage until it was sorted. Also, how goddamn hard is it to figure out what makes it stick? I've had sticky carbs/throttle bodies and never once did I rationalize "It'll work itself out on the road" - no, I figured it out and fixed it. None took more than a few minutes to address. A car like this, maybe it would have taken more time but it doesn't matter. It shouldn't have gone anywhere.

There's such a thing as calculated risk. Are there some folks who would tool around with that car, knowing the throttle sticks a bit? Probably. Would it turn out horrendous if someone were to tool it around in some back-alley industrial block with no street traffic? Probably not. Are there instances where operating a vehicle in this condition would be no big deal, even if the car still wound up wiped out? Of course. This situation was very poorly calculated, it's not equivalent, it's not forgivable.

These rocket surgeons took an unready, dangerous vehicle into busy city traffic with no plan in place for when something goes horribly wrong. Maybe it's my exposure to the aerospace world, but there's no way in hell I take a fresh car on the road, with known issues (and never a sticky throttle), without a plan to overcome the potential failure. Keying the car off, hitting a kill switch, knowing how to find neutral - all of these should have been identified and practiced a couple times. Same way people practice egress from a racecar. This isn't a monday-morning quarterback situation, this is calling out a few morons for negligent behavior that is inexcusable.

This is a couple of people who are the equivalent of someone who runs over pedestrians during a street-race. Zero difference.
 
92b said:
Yup, we're all going to find that one thing that lets us believe that "this could never happen to me". Myself included. lol
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I drive every single day with the thought of a terrible wreck being possible. Whether I'm driving Vixen, or the Escape. I do my best to be prepared. That's all any of us can do.
 
Uncle Bob said:
You too, huh?

Someone should send them a book on risk management.
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It won't do any good. The only way those types learn unfortunately is by what happened. .......even now it might not stick.
 
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