A Single Pedal for Braking and Acceleration, to Prevent Accidents

If you just made it extra wide to the point where it is one massive pedal occupying the space where the brake once was as well, then the people who have the impulse to slam their foot into a break pedal wouldn't miss. Sure, nudging your foot to the right would take some getting used to, but that's not the problem. In a pinch, you don't get the impulse to turn your foot. You get the impulse to slam your foot as hard as humanly possible into the break. This could help and by making it extra wide for a few generations (by which time we might have self driving cars anyways or a better input system such as direct neural control) could prevent problems caused by users not remembering the new system.

This seems like a great idea. I do have one question from a thought that comes into mind. How does this help for people that fall asleep at the wheel? As I understand, the normal reaction when falling asleep is to relax your leg muscles and this will raise back and slow your vehicle down a bit. With the side motion of the foot pedal, will the weight of the leg on the pedal not let your foot slide back to let off the gas? In my mind it seems to be a problem.

What about the thousands of accidents that occur because someone panicked and slammed on the brakes instead. I've been the victim of such an accident (a left-turner crossed the street in front of me and...stopped right in the middle of the street!) I bet such devices would cause MORE accidents in the short term due to the learning curve and NO CHANGE in accidents in the long term.

People who stomp on the gas instead of the brake and get in a wreck deserve to get into said wreck in the first place. Obviously if you stomp the gas you don't know how to drive well enough in the first place. Survival of the fittest.

Seriously this is not a solution to any problem this is a suger coating to idiots that can't drive. If your life is on the line and you can't make the correct choice to either hit the gas or break then you should not be allowed to drive. They need to make an invention that tests drivers reaction in these kind of situation. Driving in the midwest and northern states there is ALOT of instenses where you need to hit the gas and not the break for under/over steering situations this pedal would make that very hard to do! If you do not know what pedal you are hitting because your brain function fails then you fail at life!

It's not a design flaw. The people who can't push the right one are the flaw! My fingers are 1/8" apart is that a design flaw by mother nature? They do well to play the piano so I doubt it's a design flaw!!

Sounds tiresome to bend and hold your leg that way for a long time. My stomping muscles are used more (and aided by gravity) than my leg-twisty muscles.

Sorry Japan you come out with alot of solid inventions but this one is fail....I will never buy a call with this type of pedal and if all cars have these in them well then I will always be forced to buy old cars.

how bout gas and is controlled by pulling a lever on the steering wheel and the brake is a normal stomping pedal on the floor?

@oohoo

While I'd normally agree with you, the consequences of someone who can't drive right don't always affect just the driver. For instance, someone crashed a car into my uncle's house when they hit the accelerator instead of the brake. Had the accident occurred seconds earlier, someone would have died. And while I'd agree that people who knowingly drive drunk deserve to get into accidents, they oftentimes kill innocent people as well.

Granted, this device wouldn't have prevented this accident more than likely. Just making a point.

I think a concept similar to an airplane pedal could be used. You tip-toe to accelerate and push the whole pedal (mainly with the heel or midfoot) to break. In airplanes the tip-toeing is for braking, so this would be kind of opposite.

It would fuse the same movement we currently do on two different pedals into just one. Twisting the leg to accelerate is counterintuitive and tiring.

Please some work on something NOT related to internal comb motor vehicles.... Where is the MAG LEV system for the US? get it going..... mass transit is where it is plus... we get to fuel our need for speed= its theorhectically almost unlimited with magnetics 250+

not happening. mainstream, anyway. how are you supposed to braketorque it? powerslide? ok those arent necessary techniques for most people, especially the ones that can't maintain control of a motor vehicle in the first place. i think this idea is pointless anyway because cars are getting sonar and cameras and self-parking features and not-hitting-things features.. cars will practically drive themselves, no reason to add a fancy pedal that will confuse people. i do, however, think that more cars should come equipped with an extra accelerator/brake button on the steering wheel.. and don't forget the Turbo Boost.

I'm sure brake manufacturers would be all over this... we're talking about the same idiots who will ride ALL the way down a 2 mile hill with their foot on the brake so they don't speed up... now its gonna be and slight downward pressure and you're riding, and wearing, and ruining the brakes. Meaning A: lots of buying now brakes, and B: having brakes that fail when you actually stomp them.

The correct solution isn't make a driver proof car, its make a capable driver (it shouldn't be pass the test at 16 and drive forever on that, it should be a thing that has to be retaken at the very least every few years.)

Interesting but I would not want such a pedal. It seems to me the feel would not be there and that could cause more accidents than would be prevented. Simple tests should be able to show that control may be lost, not gained. It can be tested in a virtual driving simulator.

A designer can make an accelerator/brake controller on the steering wheel and drive it around to prove that it works but that doesn't mean it should be adopted.

Also those suggesting that it is just bad drivers are off the mark too. In extreme situations, even the most practiced user can make a mistake. It has been proved time and again that even highly trained individual can make poor choices in difficult situations.

It would take controlled user testing to prove this concept out, but it just looks wrong to me.

I think that it would be annoying for long distance driving, and it would possibly make operating a manual transmission a lot trickier.

I also think that it could lead to unintended braking -- which could be as bad a hazard as unintended acceleration, depending on the circumstances.

Nor would this cure the Toyo problem of a sticking accelerator, and possibly not floor mat jams either.

I agree that it would cause alot more problems than it would fix . rear end collisions would increase from people messing up and hitting the brake at the wrong time.

We need better driving tests . and re-tests .

@suddenmischief:

I agree with you. The same happened exact situation happened to me, and I got into a crash. I believe that the invention would be better if you could push the gas the way we normally do, but breaking would be with the heel. It makes a lot of sense, when panicking, slam into the brakes with the heel. It won't be a big deal to learn this new system. The exact same way people who learned how to drive stick-shift cars were used to drive in their countries and when came to the us, just had to adjust to the two-pedal system.

These comments are a typical reaction to something new and can be summed up in a twist on an old joke:

Q: How many drivers does it take to change a light bulb.

A: CHANGE????

Good judgment comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgement.

@ seamountie:

Seriously, what's with all the critics? This website is about new things

The big problem with this is the fact that if you'er pushing the pedal down a little bit you're braking and losing fuel efficiency and your brakes are heating up, causing them to be absolutely useless when there is an emergency.

@ John_French

I understand what you are saying about the problem with people falling asleep behind the wheel but, this is a whole different "ballpark" if you will. I think that the whole idea is just for the fact that it will help prevent car crashes. I think that the problem you are refering to should be fixed in something like the steering wheel or dashboard. I think it should have some type of sensor in the steering wheel that senses your heart rate dropping and as a result shutting the car off and turning on the flashers. well, soomething liek that.. Now granted I am a teen and still don't know everything that is just my opinion.

Edward L. Scott
True the defect is in the driver however when a problem is this common then we have to address it.

PS
My mother in her later years totaled a paid off outback with limited coverage this way.

Better solution: just push the clutch in and brake.
Sure, maybe your engine will overheat, but if your accelerator is stuck it's better to over-rev than slam into a big rig at 120 mph.

67 people die? i'm sure more people die a year from tripping over their own feet! I very seriously doubt those people were paying attention to their surroundings. More likely they were staring up at some giant crazy japanese building-t.v.

Pushing down on a pedal seems more natural to me our muscles are designed to work in that direction.

http://www.vaninsurance.com/

This isn't a very good idea, for the very reason you only use your right foot. It would be too easy to ride the gas and brakes at the same time, which is very hard on the engine. As many before me have said, if you are panicking and slamming your foot down on a pedal in sticky situations, you shouldn't be driving in the first place.

I dont like this mostly because it takes away from the act of driving. You really have to be stupid to slam on the accelerator instead of the brake.

The problem isn't accelerating or stopping. The problem is...people can't DRIVE. Every single day I have to play bumper cars with idiots who haven't a clue as to the proper operation of a motor vehicle. I wish they'd take the bloody bus.