Man survives 135mph speed with no brakes


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A motorist drove for 60 miles at a speed of 135mph after the accelerator on his BMW car jammed and his brakes failed

Agencies

Yorkshire: Kevin Nicolle, 26, was on the A1 near Thirsk in North Yorkshire when the car started to accelerate.

“I was in tears most of the time on the phone to the police - I really could see myself dying,” he said.

He had to drive on the hard shoulder to avoid crashing but eventually lost control and hit a roundabout near Blyth, Notts, but escaped unhurt.

“I remember the 999 lady saying ‘he’s crashed”, said Kevin.

Speaking about the incident on March 5, Mr Nicolle said: “I was travelling down the motorway and I came to traffic in front of me.

“I took my foot off the accelerator because it’s automatic - but I wasn’t slowing down at all.

“I hit the brakes. They were braking ok, they were keeping me at about 70mph.

“So I phoned up the police after I called the AA and they said straight away ‘stick your hazard lights on and headlights on - we’ve got a helicopter on route to you’.”

Police patrol cars were also sent but struggled to catch up with the BMW 318.

“I survived the accident but I thought I was going to die in the fire”.

Mr Nicolle said: “Then the brakes started burning out - I could see smoke coming from the brakes.”

He tried to put the car into neutral but the gears were jammed. Mr Nicolle was in constant contact with the police on a hands-free phone.

As he approached Blyth he saw a sign for a roundabout.

“There was a load of cars parked waiting to go onto the roundabout, so I went on the inside on the hard shoulder to try to get around it.

“But doing that sort of speed there was no chance and I hit the roundabout head on.

“I remember the 999 lady saying ‘he’s crashed’.

“I survived the accident but I thought I was going to die in the fire.”

But miraculously he walked away completely unhurt - and said he is now considering giving up driving for good.

Mr Nicolle said the police took the car away for tests and BMW said they would carry out a full investigation.

The R reg car had 107,000 miles on the clock and had three months remaining on the MOT.

Source: Mumbaimirror.com

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ive always wondered if that was possible, and this story proves it is possible.. i would freak out if i was in that situation as well

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Incredible.

I watched an interview with him on Sky News yesterday. He broke down as he was telling his story, he really thought he was going to die.

:)

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I wonder if they tried turning the engine off.

Good point. Probably would have worked too. I don't know if it was such a good idea having him on the phone while he was going 135Mph though.

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Good point. Probably would have worked too. I don't know if it was such a good idea having him on the phone while he was going 135Mph though.

ITs not a good point.

The FULL artical states he didnt do that in fear of the stearing not working.

But surly if they found a stright bit of road (like the motorways he was on) and turned it off, it would just slow down...

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As if The Breakes, Gearbox and Accelerator would fail all at once. If you can't put it into Neutral/2nd Gear then Kill the ignition and slowly easy the hardbrake up gradually.

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a roundabout:

Although roundabouts aren?t discussed on these pages, it is a method connecting two or more roadways without an at grade intersection. It is essentially a loop in which traffic flows in one direction (counterclockwise in countries that drive on the right side of the road, clockwise in countries that drive on the left side of the road). All roads to be intersected are connected to the loop. Basically, the driver enters the loop, goes around it, and exits at the desired road.

www.donovanmartin.com/roads/terms.html

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hes probably going to try to sue bmw. this is one of the most retarded things ive ever read and i honestly cant fathom it being true. first of all, the brakes would indeed stop the vehicle even if it was under full acceleration. they make front brakes stronger than the rear for a reason. and how the gears were "jammed" is also beyond me. what really got me was the thing about him not turning the thing off. ive never driven a BMW before but every other car ive driven would not allow you to remove the key while the vehicle was in gear. you can turn the key and disengage the ignition but it would not allow you to turn it enough to remove the key. the reason for this is that when you do turn it enough to remove it, the steering wheel lock is engaged. this wouldnt be good while you were driving.

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Good point. Probably would have worked too. I don't know if it was such a good idea having him on the phone while he was going 135Mph though.

If you read you'd have realised it was a hands free phone ;)

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Articles are so bad written, I have a hard time to read them, each phrase is a paragraph. No wonder that some people here didn't understand the full thing ...

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Heh, that sounds like fun.

Seriously though, the motorway is completely straight, he could have killed the engine, taken it out of gear and then restarted the engine, that would have probably even reset the ECU too.

Reminds me of Ford Explorers (or Ford Exploders as I call 'em) that had this issue.

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I wonder if they tried turning the engine off. Either way I'm glad he survived!

Yeah. I would have tried to wack it out of gear (even though its an automatic)

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I wonder if they tried turning the engine off. Either way I'm glad he survived!

It was in the paper yesterday, if he turned hte engine off the the steering wheel would have locked.

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IF it was an automatic then there pretty hard to kick out of gear as u dont have a usable clutch pedal as far as i know.

The 2nd point is even though the breaks are powerful the car is quite old so they wont be as effective. That combined with the continued usage at high speed will probabily cause damage.

Have to say musta been scary for the guy. IT happened to my father once but it was nowhere near as extreme as this.

I certainly wouldnt have turned the engine off unless i was sure that the Steering wouldnt lock. (I am going to check to see what actually happens in my car now :/ Better safe than sorry) I mean it only takes a second to hit a bump in the road and ur car will sprial into something nasty.

Its also on the bbc news site for anyone interested. Theres also an audio interview

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The steering wouldn't have locked if he'd killed the engine and put it on the second notch on the keyturn, no power steering, but still steering.

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