Unintended Acceleration Expert Panel: Drivers Are at Least Partly Responsible

Unintended Acceleration Expert Panel: Drivers Are at Least Partly Responsible

By Bill Visnic July 1, 2010

In its first report Wednesday to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the public, members of a panel mandated by Congress to try to find answers to explain the surge of incidents involving reported unintended acceleration admitted those answers probably won't come easy.

One of the seemingly certain early answers: human error.

In the aftermath of a rash of unintended acceleration incidents that were concentrated in a population of vehicles made by Toyota Motor Corp., Congress, skeptical of NHTSA's handling of Toyota and the agency's ability to evaluate the implications of increasingly complex electronic controls, told NHTSA to form a panel of independent experts to help sort out the mess.

That panel, run by the National Academy of Sciences, made its first report to NHTSA administrator David Strickland in which it detailed how it plans to define the problem and research the possible causes of unintended acceleration.

Members speaking Wednesday said that while it's much too early to form definitive conclusions. Mike Kirsch, a panel member and NASA expert in fault analysis, called it a "tough problem" - but said that so far, his research had been unable to discover any faults with Toyota's electronically controlled throttle, a component some believe to be a likely cause of unintended acceleration.

Kirsch mentioned that his team had yet to cause a Toyota electronic throttle to behave in a manner that might produce unintended acceleration - and noted that no other research has, either - despite the presence of inducements that include a $1 million award offered by Edmunds.com to anyone who can reproduce a unintended acceleration incident initiated by a faulty electronic component.

Data Paints A Picture

One picture developing from the panel's interpretations of unintended acceleration data: long-duration, high-speed events are rare, said NHTSA's Dick Boyd. But he did point to two factors that could be involved with such events, highlighted most notably by the San Diego police officer and his family who were killed in an alleged case of unintended acceleration: complex transmission shifter "gate" designs and the inconsistent way in which new pushbutton start/stop ignition systems work.

Boyd also pointed out that the wide majority of reported unintended-acceleration events - as well as actual crashes reputed to be caused by unintended acceleration - are low-speed affairs that happen between 0 and 15 miles per hour.

Human Factors

But most telling - and maybe most difficult to admit - was a discussion by NHTSA's Richard Compton, a human-factors researcher who flatly said there is "plenty of evidence human error plays a role," in at least some unintended acceleration incidents.

Compton also said older and younger drivers are more susceptible to making pedal-application mistakes - and that because of the makeup of their brains, also are less likely to be able to correctly evaluate and react when they inadvertently step on the accelerator instead of  the brake pedal.

He said anyone has the potential to make a mistake with pedals, pointing to a phenomenon known as "variability in skilled performance:" although a human can repeat a relatively simple action thousands of times, that repetition is no guarantee of absolute success. Compton's example: professional basketball players and their free throw shots; although the action is practiced thousands of times, many players do not achieve consistent success.

Compton also said that incidents of high excitement and stress that can occur if the driver applies the wrong pedal can consequently cause some people to engage in "hypervigilance," a response to an emotional event that causes them to become too focused on the problem and unable to take action for a solution. This and "perception narrowing" in such situations can make some people unable to act rationally under high stress - a possible explanation for reported rare events of unintended acceleration that happens for an extended period of time.

Test For The Testers?

The most intriguing presentation in the panel's first public report of its activities came from the University of Maryland's Michael Pecht. Although not a member of the Committee on Electronic Vehicle Controls and Unintended Acceleration, Pecht warned the panel of the danger of relying on known quality-control testing methods for electronic components, which he flatly said are dangerously inadequate, saying most testing standards are "40 years old."

Pecht also had harsh criticism for NHTSA itself, calling into question the agency's methods for investigating defects in the auto industry.

"Having an undergraduate degree in finance and being a (NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation) investigator is not right," Pecht said.

He said the committee members needed to look beyond established testing methods for electronics because his research has proven intermittent "no fault found" failures are not impossible with complex electronic components and that to assume otherwise is dangerous. He also said the trend of outsourcing such components to low-cost countries and companies is a strategy that also contributes to poor quality and reliability of safety-related electronics.

Some committee members reminded that their task statement does involve examination of "best practices" from other industries and sectors to consider how higher levels of quality assurance and safety might be incorporated into the production of auto-industry electronic components.   

Bill Visnic:  is an AutoObserver Senior Editor. Follow @AutoObserver on Twitter