gathermewool
Site Donor 2025
The short: I was rear-ended and pushed into the truck in front of me. Following impact, the Fiesta began to accelerate. The brakes held, but I had to slam the transmission into to Park and kill the engine to stop the acceleration and subsequent engine rev.
The long version:
I'm on travel and have a Ford Fiesta as a rental car. On my way back to the hotel I'm staying at this evening there was a lot of traffic and people driving pretty wildly, IMO. Well, I saw it coming and was luckily able to stop without incident when the guy in front of me (and the guys in front of him) literally locked it up. Unfortunately, the lady behind me took her eyes off the road to check out the accident not 50 yards back (according to the cop, that accident was a result of a husband rear-ending his wife. Insert joke here) and plowed right into me.
I don't know how fast she was going , but I recall being stopped and feeling that awful feeling of helplessness as I saw her coming up in my rear-view way too fast.
After the impact I heard an engine revving and some vibration and thought, "oh, no, the person in the car behind me hit the wrong pedal in a panic!" After what seemed like only a few seconds, the guy in front of me, who's bumper I was smushed into, moved forward and off to the shoulder. My foot was only lightly on the brake at this point and my car began to move forward with the truck in front of me.
Part of my brain thought I was still being pushed, while the other considered whether I was wedged hard enough into the truck's bumper that I was actually being pulled. After what felt like an eternity, but was probably only 10 or less seconds (from time of impact) I looked down and realized that the tach was at ~2500 RPM. I was able to stop forward motion with a firm stomp on the brakes, and then killed it by shifting to Park and concurrently turning off the ignition before the engine was even able to rev any higher.
I was just telling everyone how impressed I was with the little Fiesta, but now, after this incident, I don't know what to think. The observed behavior is unacceptable. I worry what might happen if some one was in the same situation and didn't react as I did. Based on what I observed, the realistic worst cases are that without operator interaction, the car would accelerate into the truck in front again as it pulled away, or that it would cruise into the adjacent lane and hit someone else or be hit by some one else, should the driver fail to hit the brakes due to shock. The same could be possible without th operator maintaining the brake depressed if the vehicle idled forward, but would be made much worse in this case, where it actually accelerated.
Any ideas why this would occur?
The long version:
I'm on travel and have a Ford Fiesta as a rental car. On my way back to the hotel I'm staying at this evening there was a lot of traffic and people driving pretty wildly, IMO. Well, I saw it coming and was luckily able to stop without incident when the guy in front of me (and the guys in front of him) literally locked it up. Unfortunately, the lady behind me took her eyes off the road to check out the accident not 50 yards back (according to the cop, that accident was a result of a husband rear-ending his wife. Insert joke here) and plowed right into me.
I don't know how fast she was going , but I recall being stopped and feeling that awful feeling of helplessness as I saw her coming up in my rear-view way too fast.
After the impact I heard an engine revving and some vibration and thought, "oh, no, the person in the car behind me hit the wrong pedal in a panic!" After what seemed like only a few seconds, the guy in front of me, who's bumper I was smushed into, moved forward and off to the shoulder. My foot was only lightly on the brake at this point and my car began to move forward with the truck in front of me.
Part of my brain thought I was still being pushed, while the other considered whether I was wedged hard enough into the truck's bumper that I was actually being pulled. After what felt like an eternity, but was probably only 10 or less seconds (from time of impact) I looked down and realized that the tach was at ~2500 RPM. I was able to stop forward motion with a firm stomp on the brakes, and then killed it by shifting to Park and concurrently turning off the ignition before the engine was even able to rev any higher.
I was just telling everyone how impressed I was with the little Fiesta, but now, after this incident, I don't know what to think. The observed behavior is unacceptable. I worry what might happen if some one was in the same situation and didn't react as I did. Based on what I observed, the realistic worst cases are that without operator interaction, the car would accelerate into the truck in front again as it pulled away, or that it would cruise into the adjacent lane and hit someone else or be hit by some one else, should the driver fail to hit the brakes due to shock. The same could be possible without th operator maintaining the brake depressed if the vehicle idled forward, but would be made much worse in this case, where it actually accelerated.
Any ideas why this would occur?
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