John R. Lupien writes >
> "effects of legislative and litigious idiocy". The "must step on clutch"
> idea was a reaction to the Audi 5000 lies about unintended acceleration.
No way. My 1976 Chev pickup had a "must step on clutch" interlock.
> Once it became clear that in fact what had happened was that a large
> number of idiots couldn't be trusted to tell the difference between the
> gas pedal and the brake pedal, lots of car companies decided that they had
> to do something to protect themselves from such idiots - the result was
> such bogosities as the clutch pedal interlock.
The fault really was Audi's in a way. These were automatic-transmission
cars. The investigation showed that the people actually had a foot on the
gas pedal. The problem is that some lame-brain at Audi figured that as
long as they only needed two pedals, why not make the gas pedal
extra-large for comfort. Yes, it was unintended acceleration. Yes it was
indirectly Audi's fault. But I don't remember hearing that they lost any
cases
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