QOTD: Close Encounters With the Animal Kingdom

I had to come to a complete stop in the middle of a two-lane highway in upstate New York last week because a deer decided to cross the road in front of me.

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Video of the Week: Subwoofer Triggers Airbag

Today's video of the week, presented for your afternoon amusement, shows two young men enjoying the sound of a subwoofer. Too bad that they don't know that the vibrations will set off the vehicle's airbag.

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Tales From the Service Desk: When the Wheels Fall Off

It was a bright summer day when our regular customer, a woman in her 30s or 40s who had a haircut that we’d now deem a “Karen”, was leaving the dealer with her brood after a routine service, probably an oil change and tire rotation.

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Hyundai Production Stalled After Fatal Supplier Accident

While we fully expected to issue rolling updates on factory shutdowns as industry suppliers struggled to catch up to manufacturers in the aftermath of coronavirus lockdowns, the last few have been impossible-to-predict curveballs.

Honda found itself at the mercy of digital criminals who held its network for ransom, forcing numerous factory shutdowns around the globe as it tried to make sense of the attack. Meanwhile, Hyundai has had to belay assembly in South Korea after an employee at supplier Duckyang Industry Co. fell into the machinery.

The fatal incident stopped production at the supplier, leading to parts shortages at Hyundai that required work stoppages on numerous production lines — including those responsible for the Palisade and Kona.

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Family Comes Together in Touching Father-Son Tunnel Crash

Fred Ordine and his 25-year-old son, Chadwick Quinones, were arrested on Tuesday for crashing two Chevrolet Corvettes in New York City’s Lincoln Tunnel. This unique bout of family togetherness actually took place on the night of February 9th, according to New York Daily News. However, the arrest and video footage (below the break) of the two crashing into each other are newer and absolutely perfect for the Thanksgiving holiday, which is all about bringing people closer.

Though this may have been too close.

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Study Examines America's Most Crashed Car Models

Earlier this month the insurance comparison site Insurify passed around a study of the car models most likely to receiving speeding tickets. The worst offenders were all rather predictable, with Subaru’s WRX leading the charge. Other models, like the Scion FR-S and Volkswagen Golf GTI, helped paint a clearer picture — one that pointed toward younger motorists with a preexisting interest in speed.

While “Quick Cars Go Fast” isn’t the most compelling headline, Insurify released another study this week detailing America’s most accident-prone vehicles. The speeding study was pretty cut and dried, but this one is a bit more mysterious. What goes into an automobile that makes it perfect for crashing?

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Even the Smallest Amount of Rain Sends Crashes Soaring, Study Finds

It may not be a bombshell report that leaves mouths agape, but it reinforces an age-old bit of driving wisdom: when it starts to rain, slow down and leave a greater distance between you and the car in front.

A new study reveals just how much precipitation plays a role in increasinging the likelihood of a fatal crash. Even in weather docile enough to simply dampen one’s hair, death stalks the roadways like a vulture seeking out scraps of rancid meat.

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FCA Design Head Uses Jeep Wrangler to Intervene in Fiery Accident

Last weekend, a drunk driver in a Ford Edge crossed into oncoming traffic in Addison Township, Michigan, and collided with a 2013 Ford Fiesta in the early hours of Sunday morning. At the same time Ralph Gilles, Fiat Chrysler’s Global Head of Design, was returning from an evening out with his wife and happened across the scene as the engine compartment of the Edge was beginning to catch fire.

With the occupants of the Fiesta trapped inside, Gilles decided to use his Jeep Wrangler push a burning SUV away from a wrecked hatchback — hoping to save them from a fiery death by keeping the flames from spreading to their vehicle. He explained that he had arrived just moments after the crash and had noticed the Edge driver had already exited the vehicle. Unfortunately, one of the two people in the Fiesta later passed away due to injuries sustained during the accident. But he may have saved the other by pushing the flaming SUV to the side of the road.

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Cycling Pileup Shows the Unexpected Dangers of Vehicle Safety Aids

Thanks to a pact among the world’s largest automakers, automated emergency braking will soon be standard kit on nearly every new vehicle, paving the way for a future of collision-free bliss. That’s the plan, anyway. While undoubtedly a valuable addition to the automotive landscape, self-thinking vehicle safety systems sometimes reveal their dark side.

That’s what happened Wednesday during the Abu Dhabi Tour — a big-deal cycling race in a locale where hydration no doubt takes on new importance. Fluids weren’t top of mind for five of the cyclists, however, as their race was cut short by a Mercedes-Benz with a mind of its own.

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Idiots Need to Understand That Self-driving Cars Aren't Here Yet

With automakers, the Department of Transportation, NHTSA, and Congress all attempting to get self-driving vehicles onto the road as quickly as possible, the autonomous revolution finds itself in a sticky situation. Some motorists are confusing their semi-autonomous technology with an impenetrable safety net. This has resulted in avoidable accidents as drivers assume their high-tech cars can cope with whatever’s thrown at them, and it’s probably going to get worse as more idiots buy them.

We’ve already covered how semi-autonomous features make everyone less-effective behind the wheel and the fatal Tesla Autopilot crash was a story we kept up with for over a year. Investigators ruled that accident was the perfect storm of mishaps, however, there remains a common thread between the two pieces. The driver may have been spared were he not so eager to put his faith into the vehicle’s semi-autonomous system.

On Monday, a Tesla Model S collided with stopped firetruck that was responding to an accident on a freeway in Culver City, California. As you already guessed, the driver told the firefighters that the vehicle was operating in Autopilot mode. While nobody was injured in the crash, it’s another stroke in the ugly portrait of people placing blind trust in a technology they don’t understand. And, boy oh boy, are we just getting started on illustrating this problem.

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Who's Really to Blame for Robot-Human Crashes? Are We Really Such Awful Drivers?

(In keeping with our promise to share thought-provoking fodder with our readers, we sometimes run articles published by TTAC’s sister sites. This look at recent crashes involving self-driving Chevrolet Bolts, penned by GM Inside News head honcho Michael Accardi, touches on a number of themes we’ve explored in these pages. Are humans really to blame for all of the accidents involving “perfectly safe” autonomous vehicles, or is the real picture not as crystal clear? Read on.)

The autonomous Chevrolet Bolts GM’s self-driving startup has running around San Francisco have been involved in 22 accidents during 2017 – none of which were the software’s fault (legally, that is).

Cruise Automation has been using a fleet of self-driving Chevrolet Bolts to log autonomous miles in an urban environment since GM purchased the company for more than $1 billion in 2016. When you’re trying to disrupt personal transportation as we know it and develop a new technology standard, there are bound to be a few incidents.

But this hybrid model of humans and algorithms sharing the road is more complex than simply apportioning blame based on the law, isn’t it? None of the 22 incidents involving GM’s Cruise fleet were serious, but a majority of them were caused by a fundamental difference in the way autonomous and human drivers react.

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Operational Limits Played 'Major Role' in Fatal Tesla Autopilot Crash, Says NTSB

According to a preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board, the “operational limitations” of Tesla’s Autopilot system played “major role” in a highly publicized crash in May of 2016 that resulted in the death of a Model S driver.

On Tuesday, the NTSB cited the incident as a perfect storm of driver error and Tesla’s Autopilot design, which led to an over-reliance on the system’s semi-autonomous features. After a meeting lasting nearly three hours, the agency’s board determined probable cause of the accident was a combination of a semi truck driver failing to yield the right-of-way, the Tesla driver’s unwillingness to retake the wheel, and Tesla’s own system — which may have set the framework for the accident.

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Autonomous Uber That Crashed in Arizona May Have Been Less Innocent Than Previously Thought

The recent collision in Tempe, Arizona, where an Uber Technologies driverless Volvo collided with another vehicle before rolling onto its side, might not have been as cut and dried as it originally seemed. While the Tempe Police Department originally deemed the autonomous car not to be at fault, the incident report suggest that it might have been taking the same sort of risks that any inattentive flesh-based operator might have.

EE Times obtained copies of the police report and reached out to Mike Demler, senior analyst at The Linley Group, to make sense of exactly what happened at the scene. The popular assumption was that a Ford Edge failed to yield during a left hand turn, impacting with the Volvo XC90 test vehicle and forcing it onto its side.

That’s not quite how it happened.

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Freaky Friday: Beating Carjackers Off With a Stick (Shift), and Malevolent Animals Are Everywhere

Because we haven’t yet adopted a Utopian work calendar, it’s now the day before the weekend and time for some unusual automotive news.

While there hasn’t been any reports of people or cars being crushed by colorful fall foliage, Mother Nature has been a bad girl, as animals are conspiring to destroy our vehicles through theft or by making a very distracting corpse. Meanwhile, a shrinking number of vehicles are coming from the factory with the best anti-carjacking device ever made.

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Rural Family Battles The Car for at Least the Ninth Time

Maureen Noble’s home has become an impromptu garage for random vehicles almost too many times to count.

The last time was July 8, and she’s still repairing the damage after a Ford came in one side and went out another. According to the Canadian Press, several jars of jam and pickles died violent and colorful deaths in that incident.

It’s getting tiring. She’d like to move, but the home that attracts vehicles like moths to a light bulb also repels nervous buyers.

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  • Joe This is called a man in the middle attack and has been around for years. You can fall for this in a Starbucks as easily as when you’re charging your car. Nothing new here…
  • AZFelix Hilux technical, preferably with a swivel mount.
  • ToolGuy This is the kind of thing you get when you give people faster internet.
  • ToolGuy North America is already the greatest country on the planet, and I have learned to be careful about what I wish for in terms of making changes. I mean, if Greenland wants to buy JDM vehicles, isn't that for the Danes to decide?
  • ToolGuy Once again my home did not catch on fire and my fire extinguisher(s) stayed in the closet, unused. I guess I threw my money away on fire extinguishers.(And by fire extinguishers I mean nuclear missiles.)