no reason he couldn't shift to neutral.....
My guess is he tried to shift to neutral, but the adrenaline made him push past it.
Neutral would likely have blown the engine in short order. Should have had a kill switch; you don't lose steering and brakes, just power assist.
I guess the only bright spot is that poor Mercury was spared the humiliation of having to live with a Chevy powerplant in it.
Tossing in park even though it did not go into park is just like Neutral.
You are still on the same path and have not slowed and the same thing would happen if you turned the key off.
Only way would be if it was able to go into reverse or nail it and do a 180 but then with all the traffic you would probably take out even more vehicles and you still needed to get it stopped.
Somehow I do not think this dude is capable of a 30 mph rolling 180.
I have done the reverse slam at 75 MPH before and it actually did not hurt anything but my rear tires.
Kind of flat spotted them a bit.
Lots of smoke! Stopped pretty quick also.
You are still on the same path and have not slowed and the same thing would happen if you turned the key off.
Only way would be if it was able to go into reverse or nail it and do a 180 but then with all the traffic you would probably take out even more vehicles and you still needed to get it stopped.
Somehow I do not think this dude is capable of a 30 mph rolling 180.
I have done the reverse slam at 75 MPH before and it actually did not hurt anything but my rear tires.
Kind of flat spotted them a bit.
Lots of smoke! Stopped pretty quick also.
And no mechanical parking brake? I have real world experience with that, after a blown brake hose on another ‘65 in traffic. Works, but maybe a bit tougher at the speed he was traveling. Would have lessened the damage, for sure.
I’m guessing he had one and just panicked and didn’t think to step on it. Either that, or he upgraded to disc brakes on all four corners and never got around to figuring out the mechanical system.
That first one is a lot easier to understand, though.
That is also why I have a strong preference for hand brakes over a pedal for the emergency/parking brake. It is a heck of a lot easier to feather in the rear brakes and make adjustments as needed to keep the car under control.
It also makes for a handy method to slow when you pass a cop without throwing on your brake lights making it obvious.
I dont think that killing the engine would do much with a automatic trans.
Mighta been worth a shot though.
However had he had a manual trans, killing the engine would have made the engine work like a air compressor.
Almost like a jake brake
Mighta been worth a shot though.
However had he had a manual trans, killing the engine would have made the engine work like a air compressor.
Almost like a jake brake
no offense, but wouldn't purposefully WRECKING the car into a tree (best option he also refused to do), or ANOTHER CAR (he CHOSE to do this; he should criminally charged as such, he literally WILLINGLY committed a violent act against another person, it's the same as saying "well officer my gun HAD to shoot somewhere, instead of discharging in a safe direction, i figured the back of the guy in front of me was the best choice) ALSO destroy the engine?
plus you avoid any body damage to the car AND your body AND the body of your passenger AND the body of the people (possibly children since he CHOSE to crash into a VAN) in the car you crashed into?
sorry, there's literally no excuse for these idiots. they should be in jail; both of them. could have done about ten different things EVEN AFTER the throttle stuck and he CHOSE the absolute worst option.
