Trapped in car - major safety problem

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Rat

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 25, 2010
Messages
977
Location
Silicon Valley
OK, I feel like an idiot, but I'll describe a problem I had today at the airport because someone else might benefit from it. As I approached the departure area to drop my daughter off, cars were double-parked, dropping people and then pulling out, weaving between other cars. I pulled in mostly in the "double-park lane" if there is such a thing, waiting for space closer to the curb. When it looked like it would open up in a few seconds I told my daughter to hop out but not get her luggage out of the hatch until I pulled over closer. The security guard was giving me the evil eye and waving me to get over. My daughter got out and the car that had been blocking my way moved out so I started to pull farther right, only the car wouldn't go. I couldn't figure out why. I stepped on the accelerator and still it wouldn't move. I moved the gear lever to make sure it was in drive, but succeeded only in putting it in ECO. Still it wouldn't move. Then I couldn't figure out how to get it back in drive, but thought it should still move in ECO. I sat dumbstruck for a few seconds thinking it was a problem with the shift lever. I saw the parking brake light was on so I hit the brake release but it still wouldn't move. I hit it again, then again and again maybe 20 times, pounding harder each time but the brake just wouldn't release. The guard was waving at me more urgently because I was partially blocking the through lane and my daughter was looking at me like I was crazy, waiting for me to pull over. I was near panic. I stepped on the accelerator hard trying to override the drag from the parking brake like you can do in a gas car, but that didn't work. I decided to just get out of the car and hoped the removal of the key would reset things, but I couldn't get out. The door was locked! I yanked on the handle a couple of times, getting more frustrated. If this had been a situation of being stuck on the railroad tracks I would have died for sure. I couldn't move and couldn't get out. Then I looked at the dash again. The brake like was still on, so I tried releasing the parking brake yet again but as I did so I saw a little message right in the center saying to step on the brake. Step on the brake in order to go forward? I don't remember ever reading or hearing about that. I tried it and the parking brake had finally released! Thank god some programmer thought to display that message on the dash, or I might still be stuck there. My daughter was looking at me with even greater concern now, gesturing like what is going on. The guard started to approach my car. I finally pulled over enough to clear the lane and the guard was satisfied. My daughter went to the back of the car to get her bag but she couldn't open the hatch. I thought she just didn't know how to push the button, so I tried to get out to help her but I still couldn't get out! I yanked on the door handle hard twice but it wouldn't open. I was ready to scream. Then I pushed the little unlock button on the door and got out, and then the hatch lid opened too. She got on her way shaking her head mumbling "Uhhhnn, My dad!" under her breath.

I have no idea how the parking brake got set, as I have no memory of setting it. Maybe when she jumped out the brake set automatically or maybe I did set it by habit when I came to the initial stop even though I intended to pull over farther in a few seconds . I guess this is the first time in a year and a half I've tried to release the emergency brake when trying to move. I normally release the brake within the first second of starting the car, when my foot is already on the brake, all as one practiced motion. I knew I had to brake to start the car, but I didn't know that I had to have my foot on the brake in order to release the emergency brake. It seems counterintuitive to me and a significant safety problem. Worse is the fact that the door wouldn't open when I yanked on the handle. Again, if I had been stuck on the tracks, I'd have died. In a panic situation, people just pull on the door handle to get out. They don't look for the right button in a sea of buttons. The car should be designed so that if someone pulls on the inside door handle while the car is stopped and the fob is in the car, the door should open every time, no matter what. That's an escape situation.

OK, have a good laugh. I should have known better after driving the car for 18 months, but I still think there is a serious design problem here.
 
in my experience, if you set the parking brake at a stop light, it releases when you press down on the accelerator.
it even says that in the manual. you can look it up.
 
It depends on how it as set. Regardless i figured out the brake thing a long time ago and it is there to keep people form rolling back. I think this is a simple case of driver error.
 
adric22 said:
My experience is that if you try to drive off with the parking brake engaged, it will automatically disengage it.

That is correct.
Rat, first of all, why use the Parking Brake? Were you on an incline? If not, just put it in P. As far as the doors not unlocking while the car is in Drive Mode, that's a safety feature, not a safety problem. When you shut off the car, it automatically goes into P, and the doors unlock automatically.
 
Rat said:
If this had been a situation of being stuck on the railroad tracks I would have died for sure. I couldn't move and couldn't get out.

To open the doors, all you have to do before jumping out of the car is to turn it off. You would not want the battery to discharge while being dragged by the locomotive for a few miles :lol: .
 
My Acura definitely releases the parking brake when I press on the accelerator and the car is in gear but the Leaf did not today. I was definitely stepping on the accelerator several times while the car was in gear with the brake not releasing. If I had been mistakenly pressing on the brake, the parking brake would have released since I was pushing down on the brake release lever at the same time. The more serious error, though, is not allowing the door to open when the handle is pulled up. I can see that if the car is in motion to prevent a child or even pet from jumping out, or if the fob is not in the car, since a thief might have broken a window and reached in, but if it's stopped and the key in it, the door should be openable. I think someone stuck on the tracks or sinking into deep water isn't going to be looking for the power on button or door unlock button, they're going to be pulling on the handle.
 
LEAFfan said:
adric22 said:
My experience is that if you try to drive off with the parking brake engaged, it will automatically disengage it.
That is correct.
Rat, first of all, why use the Parking Brake? Were you on an incline? If not, just put it in P. As far as the doors not unlocking while the car is in Drive Mode, that's a safety feature, not a safety problem. When you shut off the car, it automatically goes into P, and the doors unlock automatically.
There was no incline. So far as remember I did NOT use the parking brake. Yet it was on. So I either set it unconsciously or something caused it to set. I never turned the car off. I intended to just sit there a few seconds while the car blocking me moved away in front of me, but discovered the car wouldn't move when I tried to go forward. It was in drive with my foot on the accelerator and the brake did not release. I was even "gunning the engine" trying to get it to disengage after the first couple of failures. I wonder if the fact I was simultaneously holding down the brake release lever actually caused the automatic release feature not to work. That would be ironic.
 
My parking brake doesn't usually release when I press on the accelerator pedal, but I hadn't previously heard that your safety belt has to be on. Could be my problem...I'll have to investigate further.
 
As Vegastar said, the car will release the parking brake automatically only if you have your seat belt fastened. You had probably already taken your seat belt off because you were about to get out of the car.
 
Rat,

I suggest trying to reproduce the problem.

This is the first time I've heard of anything like this happening, and it would be a huge benefit to everybody to figure out how the car managed to get into this state.
 
I had not taken off my seat belt at the time of problem because I wasn't planning to exit the car until I had moved it forward. I also remember releasing it when I did later get out of the car after moving it. I did make one mistake in what I said earlier. I was not holding down the brake release lever when "gunning the engine", but I was repeatedly pressing it down so if I had accidentally stepped on the brake rather than the accelerator, it should have released the parking brake. I am also certain I had not accidentally put it in neutral since when I did hold the brake pedal and then push the parking brake lever, then released the foot brake, it began edging forward normally without me touching the shift lever. I am beginning to suspect that the repeated pressing of the brake release might actually have caused the release sequence to continually reset or restart, thus actually preventing the release, but I have no basis for this other than this experience and pure speculation.
 
Rat, 1st, glad to hear all is o.k. This type problem has been posted here a couple of times before in different settings. The one thing that sounds similar in all of them is rapid, almost simultaneous inputs from the driver on various controls. I've not posted in either of the other threads, but this sounds similar to a problem we had in the first few days with our Leaf. Twice, my wife called me from our driveway saying she could not get the car to go, and she too was locked in. In our other cars, she had the habit of trying to do everything at once, ignition, gear selection, brake release & acceleration were almost a single move for her, and the older style mechanical switches and linkage had no problem with multiple simultaneous inputs. I believe she did the same rapid inputs in the Leaf, but it seems the electronics just waited for some time to clear all the requests, then it operated normally. At least our problem disappeared. Unrelated coincidence? Possible, but it now works fine.
 
Pressing "Park" should unlock the doors. Trying to go forward does release the parking brake. In my experience, any time the car thinks you are being stupid, it beeps. And usually, that means, "Step on the brake, stupid!". I've even had it beep at me when my foot was on the brake, and I'm shifting into R. It still goes into R, so I think it's being a bit pedantic, like I tried to do it "too soon". It almost sounds like you had one of those rare instances when the computer gets confused and stops responding to your inputs. But I don't know. I thought I knew all the modes for this thing, but that "seatbelts fastened" item was a new one for me. So, you never know what extra factor might be in play.

Powering it off would be the wild card, though. It unlocks the doors, and usually clears all the confusion in the computer. Then again, if it's really confused, it would refuse to turn off. There has been the occasional report of that, too.
 
Rat said:
The car should be designed so that if someone pulls on the inside door handle while the car is stopped and the fob is in the car, the door should open every time, no matter what. That's an escape situation.

How was your daughter able to "escape" when the doors were locked?

None of my vehicles allow the opening of locked door while not in park, unless of course I choose to push the un-lock button or manually push the lock cam above the door handle. You can pull the door handle a hundred times and it's not going to open........that train will get ya'

I certainly don't want someone being able to walk up to my running, stopped car and being able to open a door.

Trapped in car - major safety problem....I think not
 
The first thing I did when I got the car was disable the auto-lock. I HATE not being able to pull the handle and get out at any time. It's not like I am going to accidentally pull the door handle when I'm driving. And to me it will make it easier for rescue to get to me if I were ever in an accident.

With that said you have to make sure it actually went into park before getting out of the car.
 
leafmealone said:
Rat said:
The car should be designed so that if someone pulls on the inside door handle while the car is stopped and the fob is in the car, the door should open every time, no matter what. That's an escape situation.
How was your daughter able to "escape" when the doors were locked?
Easy. She pushed the unlock button on her door, got out and closed the door.
leafmealone said:
None of my vehicles allow the opening of locked door while not in park, unless of course I choose to push the un-lock button or manually push the lock cam above the door handle. You can pull the door handle a hundred times and it's not going to open........that train will get ya'. I certainly don't want someone being able to walk up to my running, stopped car and being able to open a door.
Nor do I, but that's not the situation here, since I am only talking about it opening when I pull the INSIDE door handle. I keep my windows up so the bad guy can't get me. I'm much more worried about getting knocked off the road in an accident into a ditch or stream, etc. being upside down or sideways in total darkness with the car filling up quickly. In that situation I'm not sure I would have the presence of mind to reach to exactly the right position with my hand to hit either the power off button or the master unlock before grabbing the handle. I would be more likely to be able to find the relatively "great big" handle. If you prefer otherwise, that's fine.
 
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