And your point is ???
Very rare that brakes fail.
Brakes ain’t woik no good when accelerator be depressed.
Th.is why I recommend practicing panic braking.
With engine off, seatbelts on looking straight ahead as though driving, instantly take foot from accelerator and press brake.
Repeat enough to keep it second-nature.
Many good drivers when getting older may press the accelerator instead of brake.
Older man in his Newport Beach, CA condomium garage was backing out of his space.
Hit accelerator instead of brake.
Plowed into a brand new Cadillac behind.
He placed his car in Drive. Plowed into the car next to his parking space.
Reversed and hit the garage cement wall.
(My friend above thought a small earth quake.)
An older woman accelerated onto the Newport Beach Ferry, causing people to jump into the water.
People make mistakes Pleas just go away
In the past when someone accelerated in to something instead of braking it could only happen if they mixed up the pedals. Today with electronic throttles it may not be the driver’s fault.
Such is why we teach new drivers and senior drivers to continually practice panic braking and keep
it second nature.
Yet another possibility is that some drivers did not previously have a car with ABS and/or failed to read what the manual states regarding the application of one’s brakes with a newer ABS-equipped vehicle. A friend of mine bought a new Yaris, circa 2019, and his previous car (not a joke!) was a '59 Dodge.
I had to explain to him–multiple times–that he shouldn’t release the brake pedal when “the brakes feel funny”. Of course, it’s counter-intuitive that someone should firmly apply the brakes and not release the pedal, even if it “feels funny”, but he had failed to read the manual, and if I hadn’t hammered the point with him, it is entirely possible that he would have hit another vehicle (or a person) because he was ignorant of the way to apply the brake on a modern vehicle.
He surely couldn’t be the only driver who was experiencing ABS for the first time.
And don’t forget, some people just can’t drive for crap, and other people panic if a squirrel crosses the road in front of them and they run off the road to keep from running over the little rodent…
Yup!
On a regular basis, I encounter people who suddenly veer into the oncoming lane because of a vehicle that is stopped on their side of the road, and I’ve had a few close calls as a result.
Many of the roads in my area have no shoulder, or the “shoulder” is less than 5 feet wide. But, if someone encounters a stopped vehicle and chooses to suddenly veer into oncoming traffic–instead of slowing down/stopping until there is no opposing traffic before they steer around the vehicle on their side of the road–I submit that they can’t drive for crap.
I may be one of those types. I don’t make panic stops and turns for a squirrel, but I can still remember when I ran over one of those little critters when driving Highway 50 over the Sierra Nevada mountains 4 or 5 years ago. I felt sorry for the little guy, but I was in a long line of closely spaced cars, mountain on one side, 200 foot cliff on the other, I had no safe way to avoid it.
this is deleted
An oldie but a goodie-
The right boots are important. Backing up in my driveway with those big winter boots. Panic as I braked but boot slid on to gas pedal. No damage to garage door or car but lesson learned.
The most often refrain we hear when a car accelerates spontaneously and the “brakes fail” is that the driver says “I was pressing the brake as hard as I could and the car kept accelerating”. Need I say more?
Yup!
As I have mentioned previously, I was a passenger in my friend’s Accord sedan in 2008 when we were T-boned–on the property of a Shell gas station. My friend had already filled-up and was slowly driving toward the exit when a Lexus RX careened off of US Route 1, onto the gas station property, and hit us.
In the aftermath, cops from two towns were interviewing everyone who was involved in the accident, because the wacky woman driving the RX had first hit a car on Rt 1 (in North Brunswick), and then hit us, in South Brunswick. I was able to overhear the North Brunwick cop’s conversation with her when she said “the harder I pushed the brake pedal, the faster my car went”. The cop’s softly-muttered response was something along the lines of… yeah, that’s what happens when you hit the gas instead of the brake.
At the time, I was on crutches as a result of a fractured foot, and I asked the South Brunswick cop if he could arrange for some sort of transportation for us, as I only lived ~7 miles away. He curtly refused, got back in his car, and drove away.
Luckily, when I asked the same question of the North Brunswick cop, he said, “As long as my Sergeant okays it, I will drive you home”. That was my first–and hopefully my last–ride in the back seat of a police car. 
Had a state trooper tell my safe driving class: “Don’t do a panic swerve for anything smaller than a cat, it is not worth the damage to you or the vehicle. Here in Maine do try to avoid, deer, moose, horses as these can cause considerable damage if hit.”
Human baby in the road, changes that–always stop!
I always thought that was just plain common sense, I did tell my kids not to swerve for rodents, just in case…
Well yeah, a deer, moose, horse, cow, coyote, wolf, any large animal will damage your car, but in my old Power Wagon with 32" tires and a 3/8" thick C channel 9" tall custom made front bumper with brush guard, I could hit a normal sized deer (for this area) and drive right over it with no damage… lol
But for me, if it looks like it will go under the bumper with out damage to the car, it will be road kill if to stupid to get out of the road, if I can not safely avoid it, and around my area and the next city over deer population is way to high, so you have to be on guard when driving in deer out and about times… I can see 10-20 deer in my yard most evenings…
And Yes, stop or whatever for small children… that is a given…gezz lol
And of course, avoid skunks at all cost!!!..
Definitely!
About 20 years ago, my friend was driving his late 80’s-era Honda Prelude at night, and when he crested a rise in the road, he saw a deer directly in his path. He hit the brakes and swerved, but because that older car lacked ABS, he couldn’t properly steer, and he wound-up in a ditch.
The car wound-up being totaled, which was a real shame because it had less than 20k miles on the odometer, but–either way–it probably would have been totaled. Hitting the deer, or avoiding the deer and going into a ditch, would both have likely totaled the car.
Or slowing down enough to minimize the damage before hitting the deer, if you are doing 30mph and a whatever runs out in front of you, and if you can slow down to 10-15mph before you hit the deer or whatever vs driving off a cliff, ditch, whatever, then the damage would not be nearly as bad… Sometimes these things are a case by case decision that you just have to have common sense to make…
But we have had the common sense discussions before… 