Hit the Gas! Or Don’t…

Written by Sid BridgecloseAuthor: Sid Bridge Name: Sid Bridge
Email: sid@thesidagency.com
Site: http://www.theendive.com
About: Sid Bridge, APR is Senior Editor for Parcbench. He is also Editor-in-Chief of The Endive, an online humor magazine for conservatives. As Parcbench's Senior Editor, Sid enjoys working with a diverse team of writers, each with his or her own unique personality. Sid is a happily married father of four, and a rare breed - an orthodox Jew who likes muscle cars and wears cowboy boots.See Authors Posts (74) on February 3, 2010

Toyota’s in a bit of a pickle.

CNN even compared the crisis Toyota is facing to the Tylenol poisoning crisis of 1982 – a stable of all my public relations classes in college. Toyota took the high ground in reacting fairly quickly and doing an extremely wide-reaching recall.

It looks as though Toyota may not have caught the problem early enough, as these cars have been on the road for quite some time. This is particularly shocking for a car company like Toyota, which banks its reputation on the reliability of its vehicles.

The root of the problem, however, lies in the double-edged sword of modern technology. As Parcbench’s resident car nut, I just can’t keep quiet on this one.

In the not-too-distant past, a car’s gas pedal worked in a simple way. Take my 1968 Oldsmobile, for instance. When I press the pedal down, it pulls back on a cable. That cable tugs a spring-loaded lever on the side of the carburetor, opening up the jets and pouring fuel into the engine.

Modern cars don’t do that.

Today’s ‘gas pedal’ is really just there to make you feel better. When you push it down, springs and levers simulate the feel of an old-school pedal, but you aren’t tugging a cable on your carburetor or fuel injector. You’re sending a request to the car’s computer to inject the exact amount of fuel needed into the engine.

I’ll be the first to admit there are some positives to this. First of all, it makes cars more fuel efficient without sacrificing horsepower. Second of all, it allows for a computer-controlled failsafe mechanism that disables the gas pedal when the brake is hit at the same time. Safety’s a good thing.

Unfortunately, it also puts your life in the hands of a computer that makes arbitrary decisions for you. Toyota’s problem was in the pedal’s mechanical setup – in trying to simulate the feel of a real gas pedal while sending the appropriate information to the computer, parts of the assembly wore out prematurely and began to bind.

The result was occasional sticking of the pedal – and occasional can be enough to prove fatal.

As an old school car guy, I prefer not to have a computer in control of my engine (or anything else in the car for that matter). I’m not saying we should do away with vehicular computers, but it would be nice if there were more cars available that didn’t rely on them so much. They would be easier to work on and last much longer.

How long did your last desktop PC last? How long would it last if it was crammed into the engine compartment of a car? When the computer finally does need replacing, it usually exceeds the value of the vehicle, so it’s game over for your car, thanks to the computer.

After 42 years, my Oldsmobile still works great. I’ve replaced most of the parts, but it wasn’t exactly hard and it cost me less in the long run than a new car.

Is there a lesson to be learned here? I don’t want to scare you away from your car. Ultimately, the illusion of control provided by your vehicle’s computer is no scarier than the illusion of control anyone has while driving a car on a daily basis. If you’re a safe driver, even a sticky gas pedal is something you can overcome. Drive safely. But keep an eye on that computer.

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Sid Bridge, APR is the Senior Editor for Parcbench and the Editor-in-Chief of The Endive, a satirical news magazine. He also never forgave HAL 9000 for not opening the pod bay doors.