Don't they train for this sort of thing when preparing for high speed pursuits?? My buddy is Seattle Gang Unit and he says they do.
If presented with equipment (car) failure at high speeds they go through specific steps to abort the chase and safely control the vehicle.

I still agree with you though, very sad <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

That's presuming the vehicle is without defect. You can't compare what your buddy does to this.

They're both trained by the same organizations for high speed malfunctions and how to resolve without causing injury or death to others.

Accelerators stick, brakes fail and tires blow at 100+ mph all part of their training.

I find it surprising too..

I learned early by trial by fire <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/scared.gif" alt="" />

When I was a 16 year old kid working weekends at a service station, the owner handed me the keys to his '59 Pontiac Bonneville Tri Power (3 carburetors) 389 V-8. You old guys know this engine by the legendary 389 Pontiac GTO. He told me to go to the local hamburger hangout and get us some lunch. It didn't occur to him to mention the broken motor mount in the Pontiac.

As I was backing up in the parking lot, I put it in Drive and hit the accelerator a bit to start moving forward. The throttle on the 389 went wide open, burning rubber heading toward a brick wall about 75' away. Bearing down with both feet on the (lousy, par for the course in that era) brakes didn't even phase it..

Even as a young 16 year old, inexperienced driver, I had sense of mind to reach down and kill the ignition..

GM V-8s of this era up into the late '60s had a habit of the left side motor mount breaking (rubber separating from the steel mount, no captive steel to limit how far it would separate) allowing the left side of the engine to lift up and, the way the throttle linkage was set up, this would pull the throttle wide open.

GM got sued over this widely known problem, that they neglected to fix for a long time. I've talked to a number of people of that era that had GM vehicles and would take a short length of chain and loop it through the mount to keep the engine from lifting when the mount broke (again).

That's all well and good, blah blah, but civilians simply don't do that. Again, you can't compare.

WTF...Civilian, he's a California Hwy Patrol Officer!!!

I'm not talking about anyone other than the audio of the guy in the video clip posted by ErikB. I just feel his training failed him and his family!

And I am also talking about other civilians who died because of this malfunction, not just a cop. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

To reiterate what I said earlier:

Isn't that his job, to maintain control under duress when others typically can not?

He was still human. I have some EMS time under my belt; happens to even the best out there. That's why you critique stuff.

He had his family in that car; ain't part of the training scenario. I stand by what I said.

>>>*Actually, the most common human reaction when totally surprised is to react with instinct, Margie is right on this one. Instinct can often be exactly the wrong thing to do.

One example I know of is on the racetrack. Going into a turn too hard, instinct is to hit the brakes which is exactly wrong, just like suddenly sliding on ice, brakes are wrong. The correct thing to do is to let her roll and steer. Tell someone with a 4WD that is sliding into a ditch to step on the gas gently and steer? Most jam on the brakes.

It's why some highly trained police officers when faced by sudden gunfire cannot hit the broad side of the barn at point blank range. The right thing to do is to calmly aim and fire.

When confronted with a surprise runaway the mind can become confounded, I know because it happened to me in that dragster. Over and over I lifted my foot in the traps, settled the chassis, hit the kill and the parachute.

When I lifted my foot and she kept right on going, for a moment I panicked myself, so I know it can happen.

Panic scrambles the brains, it can overwhelm any training in some people. When the results are a tragedy, it's always a sad situation......*EB