http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32607042

Four people are dead after a Lexus sedan lost control and burst into flames and two of the victims may be children, a boy and girl, who were sitting in the back seat, investigators said. The male and female in the front may have been their parents.The male driver called 911 shortly before 7 p.m. Friday in Santee, saying his accelerator was stuck. Witnesses said they saw the Lexus heading northbound on 125 weaving through traffic at a high rate of speed.
CHP officials said the driver tried to make a left turn when the freeway ended at Mission Gorge Road, but he was going too fast and struck a Ford Explorer. The Lexus then broke through a fence and struck a dirt embankment, catapulting it through the air more than 100 feet. The vehicle landed in dense vegetation near a riverbed.


"The car ended up on its wheels and caught on fire, which caused a small brush fire," officer Brian Pennings said.
Firefighters quickly knocked down the flames and made the grim discovery.
"All four bodies were still in the vehicle, none were ejected," Santee Fire Chief Mike Rottenberg said.
The intersection was closed for several hours as the CHP investigated. They said the bodies were charred and immediate identification was not possible.
The victim in the Ford Explorer was taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital. Investigators said that victim was not seriously injured.

 

While I understand panic was probably involved... if he had time to call 911 he could have easilly turned off the ignition key.. or at least put the car into neutral.

 

That sucks. But a couple of things are questionable. Why didn't the driver shut off the ignition? Why didn't he use the emergency brake to slow the car down enough then put it in park?

 

E brake most times wont stop it if the throttle is stuck. It would most likely burn out the ebrake before it slowed down enough.

However, cramming it in park or neutral.. or turning the ignition switch back a click would have taken much less time than calling 911 as I mentioned above.

However, when people panic they sometimes do not think clearly.

 

any one seen the movie idiocracy cause thats what it reminds me of...

anyways some thing like that happened to me on my old car... while in city traffic throttle got stuck at w.o.t. while i was braking for a stop light about 100 yards ahead... panicked applied tons of pressure on the brakes, threw it into neutral... pulled into a gas station turned off the car, check to see wtf went wrong pulled off the air cleaner off the car to get to the carb to check the linkage... some how the throttle return spring got hung up on some thing and every thing was fine after that mishap...

 

For the sake of the relatives left behind who are already dealing with the loss, I sincerely hope this was just a case of panic. It just strikes me as odd that someone would not know to turn back the ignition, or shift to neutral. If Lexus has some sort of super special ignition, or transmission I'm not aware of, I retract my assessment.

 

Can you push the dash button to shut off the car when you're in drive?
Neutral would have been available no matter what however..

It's always too bad to hear about this but the fact that all 4 people were still inside the car shows how well the safety systems, as they were intended.

 

how come 911 didn't tell them to do that?

 

^^^I was thinking the same thing.

 

well depends on what kind of lexus, i dont think it said

 

they are blaming it on (death by) floor mats now...

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/play...p/?cl=15612144

 

yes they are now saying it was because of the wrong type of all weather floor matts ( very thick all rubber mats) for the wrong type of car..i work for lexus and just yesterday we were told we are not allowed to sell any all weather floor mats or exact mats till further notice..

 

wow this is terrible but the deceased was a highway patrolman, i think he would have a little more commonsense than most, i would think he would know to put the car in neutral?

 

hell i have some universal all weather floor mat but i cut large chunks out of it so it doesn't innerfear(yeah i know i spelled it wrong) with the gas and clutch pedals... i mean it doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure it out

 

Last I heard it wasnt his car (borrowed or a rental) so he would not have thought about it ahead of time. Also, it has been mentioned that a good number of people when first driving a pushbutton start setup (I think this one was) dont realize that you have to hold down the button for 3 seconds to shut the car off on some of them. If it was a rental he may not have realized that and panicked. Honestly, I think the pushbutton start is stupid. It mostly is a gadget for the sake of having a gadget that causes more complexity and more to break... but I digress

Still, he could have tried shifting the car to neutral or at least eased to theside and started hitting something when he first realized what was happening and before he was going 120mph. But, people do strange things when panicked.