Accelerator pedal sticking

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jendbbay @ Mar 24 2007, 04:29 PM) [snapback]411594[/snapback]</div>

Well... I will grant that this probably isn't as much of a problem in your area. I lived in California for years and the roads are vastly better designed there. Reasonable lane widths, generous on-ramps, good signage and lane markings, etc.

In contrast to all that, though, I would invite you to try out a number of moronically designed freeway on-ramps in Nashville or Atlanta. Having experienced them, I expect you'd be right there with me. In this part of the country median vehicle speeds have been rising dramatically over the last few years, and there are on-ramps where it is extraordinarily difficult to be at a suitable merging speed. And as if it wasn't hard enough to merge left into 70 mph slow lane traffic after a short uphill on-ramp, we now have some on-ramps where you get to merge right into 80-85 mph *fast lane* traffic. The worst offender I have in mind leaves you that with a fairly middle-of-the-road car, if you go around the corner as fast as you dare and keep the accelerator pinned all the way up the hill, you can hit 60 mph before you are unceremoniously dumped into 80 mph fast-lane traffic. Oh, and the on-ramp vehicles and the fast-lane vehicles can't see each other until the last possible moment, so there's no opportunity for either to do any advance planning of how to accommodate each other.

I'm the first to admit that it's defective road design, but as an individual citizen these cases, the best thing you can do short of going miles out of your way to avoid the bad ramp completely is to flog the car so that you are at least going 60 when you get to the top. It's just workable that way. If it were any worse than it is, I'd spend the extra 20 minutes it takes to avoid the ramp. The really scary part is that the local transit agency sends their city buses up that ramp, and they of course have no chance of hitting the end of the on-ramp at more than about 20 mph. The same for non-locals; if you don't know what awaits you and just drive up the ramp like any other, you won't be going much faster than the buses before you hit the fast lane.

Then again, this is the same state that recently managed to trick a professionally driven tour bus full of college athletes into thinking that a carpool lane off-ramp was the continuation of the carpool lane, leaving their coach fly up an off-ramp at full speed and catapult off the side of an overpass and fall 30 feet down onto the interstate again (where traffic was still moving at full speed).

Anyway, my point is that there are times where full-blast acceleration, despite the noise and the inefficiency, is pretty much a necessary survival tactic in circumstances that are limited but do definitely exist.

 

I went to see famly and when I was driving through Oklahoma they had some crazy on ramps. One on ramp you went around a sharp turn had like two feet (exaggeration it was just extremely short) to merge into the fast lane. At the time I had a Mini Cooper S with the enhanced supercharger pulley, air intake, and free flow exhaust. Flloring it ans shifting to obtain maximum acceleration I still almost got rear-ended by a behemoth suv going more than 85mph. I was only able to get from the 25mph I was going on the turn to about 65-70. The mini handles turns very well and I was forced to slow way down for this turn so can you imagine a car like the prius or even a Honda with very little torque. The prius at least has the high torque electric motor to help out.

Not all on ramps are created equal and some make you want to find the a-hole who thought it up and shoot him.

 

A word to the wise.

The Prius gas pedal can stick - no question about it. Usually happens when you jamb the accelerator pedal to the floor. Best defense is to be prepared - don't panic, apply the brakes. I have no floor mats in my car and can replicate this issue.

 

So we have a new owner (maybe) searching for stuck gas pedal postings and claiming in the Prius it will without help from the floor mats?

For your information, Pearl's pedal has -NEVER- stuck, either from mats or any other cause. In fact, I'm living dangerously, as I have two mats, one on top of the other and I still can't make the pedal stick!

Turn off your car, open the door, get out, and depress the pedal until you're blue in the face. Just try to make it stick (as the car is off it will do nothing if it does or doesn't).

THEN post your claims!

 

Please don't feed the troll.