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submitted 4 hours ago by abc@suppo.fi to c/electricvehicles@slrpnk.net
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[-] Notyou@sopuli.xyz 10 points 3 hours ago

I was kinda assuming the driver messed up this time. The fact that it was pressed to 100% through the crash and still after makes me think he thought it was the brake.

[-] BillyClark@piefed.social 4 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Absolutely. I said it the last time this was posted, that this is an extremely common wreck with every model of car. About half of the drivers in my family growing up caused an accident this way. People press the accelerator when they think they're pressing the brake. The car goes faster, so they press the "brake" harder.

And even after the crash, the driver often insists that it's a problem with the car.

It's a driver error. A foot misalignment problem. It probably does happen more with any "self driving" car or anybody who uses smart cruise control, because the driver may not be using the pedals at all before the incident.

[-] noxypaws@pawb.social 2 points 36 minutes ago

It probably does happen more with any "self driving" car or anybody who uses smart cruise control, because the driver may not be using the pedals at all before the incident.

a really good point I'd never considered when thinking about accidents like these.

Intuitively it makes sense. If my heel remains planted in front of the accelerator pedal even if I'm not pressing it, I still have a frame of reference to know where the brake pedal is. If I'm using all the fancy assisted driving stuff on a long stretch I may relax a bit and pull my foot back, but that does mean if I need to slam on the brakes my reaction time will be worse, and I run the risk of hitting the wrong pedal since I don't have that anchor point anymore.

good thing to be mindful of when using cruise control of any type, newfangled or old school.

[-] FaceDeer@fedia.io 4 points 2 hours ago

Yeah. That's always been my nightmare driving a regular car too, the "stop" and "go faster" buttons are right next to each other and in a place you can't see them. Such a weird standard, presumably a result of the requirement for physical linkages from early in car history. Would have been nice if electric vehicles had provided an opportunity to rethink that paradigm.

[-] Warl0k3@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

The reason for the gas/brake being next to eachother is due to the historical need to work the clutch pedal at the same time as the gas/brake in manual transmissions. However most modern EVs (including tesla model 3s) have single-pedal driving (press to go, release to slow), so the standard is indeed changing!

this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2026
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Electric Vehicles

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Electric Vehicles are a key part of our tomorrow and how we get there. If we can get all the fossil fuel vehicles off our roads, out of our seas and out of our skies, we'll have a much better environment. This community is where we discuss the various different vehicles and news stories regarding electric transportation.


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