Sudden unintended accelerations are incidents where the vehicle you are driving, accelerates suddenly and that acceleration is unintended, exactly as the title suggests. Although sudden unintended accelerations are relatively rare, they do exist and have existed for decades. Driven Forensics have had a number of clients who have experienced sudden unintended accelerations and have come to us to try and find out why and uniquely, the companies director has suffered a sudden unintended acceleration of his own. Some clients were seeking to understand what happened, some were seeking legal redress and others had been charged by the Police for driving offences.

Sudden and unintended accelerations are real, and have actually taken place, and these kinds of events are not restricted to modern cars, they occur on older vehicles as well. Some commons reasons for sudden unintended accelerations are a mixture of poor engineering, poor maintenance or on some occasions driver error and that last one might surprise some of you. So whether you are driving a petrol, diesel, hybrid or full electric vehicle, you may find yourself in the position of having your vehicle suddenly and unintentionally accelerate.

The most common attribution to sudden unintended accelerations, in my opinion, is driver error and there are various reasons why. Driver’s have been known to depress the accelerator pedal when they believe they are depressing the brake and when the vehicle speeds up rather than slows down, they push down harder on the pedal, which increases acceleration further. There are also instances where interior trim, such as floor mats, have led to an accelerator pedal being depressed.

But whilst it would seem from the research out there that the most common cause of sudden unintended acceleration is human error, we shouldn’t accept that at face value, because there are equally cases where the driver wasn’t too blame and other factors were at play, which includes poor vehicle maintenance and component failure as well as more recently failures of the vehicles software systems,

When investigating any sudden unintended acceleration, it is important to identify as many facts about the incident as possible and I have included a number of starting points below.

What happened – In cases of sudden unintended acceleration, the devil is always in the detail, so when I say what happened, I mean in as much detail as possible. Were the headlights on, was the heating on, where were the fans facing, was the radio on, what did you do in the moments leading up to the incident, were any driver assist functions active and more. The more detail you gather, the easier it is to see a pattern.

Vehicle maintenance – Some unintended accelerations are caused by mechanical failure, in older cars throttle cables becoming stuck and in some newer cars, engine oil becoming a source of fuel for the car. So make sure you get a comprehensive maintenance history for the vehicle and check the basic fluids (such as engine oil, coolant, washer fluids, brake fluids etc).

Vehicle history – For some sudden unintended accelerations, the first the driver will know about it, is when it happens, but for many (particularly those caused by mechanical failure) there are warning signs or if you prefer, mini sudden unintended accelerations. As an example, Nick, the Driven Forensics Director, had a sudden unintended acceleration in an old van. Following that incident, the source of the unintended acceleration was found to be oil from the turbocharger, entering the engine, in effect providing an additional source of fuel. But in this category, we’re not just looking at previous instances of sudden unintended acceleration, we’re looking at whether there were any warnings on the dashboard, if they have noticed an increased oil level, a repeated failure to regenerate the diesel particulate filter (DPF) and more. Finally, it is also handy to know whether the vehicle has any outstanding recalls or has had any recalls rectified.

Finally, I leave you with this thought. Sudden unintended accelerations are real and have been occurring in vehicles for decades. Although the causes of these incidents varies vehicle to vehicle, there are some patterns which can help us understand where to start looking.

If you or your client have had a sudden unintended acceleration, contact Driven Forensics today to find out how we can help you understand what truly happened.

Email: enquiry@drivenforensics.co.uk

Phone: 0113 534 8708