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9.5.14 RENAULT SUDDEN
ACCELERATION
INCIDENTS - FRANCE
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The case of the mad Vel Satis "Vel Satis Folle" outlined
below is
unique. The incident started just before midnight on
October 3rd 2004.
The driver telephoned the police on his mobile to tell
them that he
could not slow down the vehicle. It seems that someone was
listening to
the police radio and informed the press who immediately
took up the
story. Meanwhile the driver, having eventually stopped the
vehicle, and
not knowing anything about this media interest, arranged
to have the
car taken to a repair garage and took a taxi home to get
some sleep.
Renault "collected" the car in the early hours of the 4th
October,
without the owners permission, and took it to their
research
laboratories for tests and promply took legal action
against the driver
for allegedly causing damage to the company. How the
matter was
eventually settled is not known.
http://www.leblogauto.com/2005/05/electronique_em.html#comments
Par Christophe
Labédan
le 23 mai 2005 : lire également/ Also read:
- October 3rd 2004 Renault Vel Satis
- Alleged sudden
acceleration
incident on A71 between Bourges and Clermont
Ferrand, France on
Sunday 3rd October 2004
- Story
according
to
Reuters Oct 2004: Cruise control issue
[L'histoire de la Vel
Satis folle] French carmaker Renault
challenged a driver's
statement that a fault in one of its
top-of-the-range cars had embarked
its panic-stricken owner on an involuntary 200 km
per hour motorway
dash.Renault said its engineers had given a clean
bill of health to the
40,000 euro ($49,190) Vel Satis, whose owner Hicham
Dequiedt
<<Draa,not Dequiedt>> told police a
malfunction in the
electronic cruise control was to blame for Sunday's
high-speed
incident. The company said in a statement it wanted
a judge to appoint
an independent expert to audit the car's systems and
confirm the
findings of its own engineers who inspected the
vehicle. Renault said
it could take legal action "without prejudice to
other legal actions
taken in compensation for any damage suffered by the
company." A
spokesman said the company had not decided whether
to pursue legal
action against Dequiedt personally. Dequiedt was not
immediately
available for comment.Police said a panicked
Dequiedt, convinced he was
going to die, had called them several times on his
mobile telephone on
Sunday as his car tore down the A71 motorway toward
a toll station. The
police officer who took the calls said Dequiedt was
forced to veer left
and right to avoid traffic and switched to the hard
shoulder reserved
for rescue vehicles to avoid traffic. Police
attempting to escort him
along the motorway found they were quickly
overtaken. Eventually the
driver managed to bring his car to a halt around 20
km (12 miles) from
the toll station, which had been evacuated as a
precaution. No one was
injured in the incident.
- Justice
-
Expertise
de
la
Vel
Satis
:
nouveau report. Par
Philippe
MATHON, le 01 juin
2005 Les
deux
spécialistes,
mandatés
par
la
justice
pour
comprendre pourquoi le
véhicule se serait mis à rouler
à 200 km/h durant
près d'une heure, ont
obtenu mercredi matin un second report. Le
délai d'un mois
supplémentaire devrait leur permettre de
"finaliser la
rédaction de
leur rapport".
- March 22 2005: Speed Regulators : A
motorist takes out proceedings against
Renault after an accident.
BORDEAUX ( AP) - A Bordeaux motorist
has filed emergency
proceedings against the Renault Company in the
County Court of Bordeaux
(Gironde) after an accident which she
considers due to a failure of the
speed regulator of her Renault Clio or to the
failure of the braking
system,
it was learnt on Tuesday from her
lawyer, Me. Scarlett Berrebi.
The
accident occurred on March 12th on the highway
A63 to Cestas, to the
South
of Bordeaux. Christine Mourtier had set the
speed regulator to 110
kph
when traffic slowed down in front of her. She
asserts that she was not
able
to free the regulator, in spite of using the
brake. She collided
with
the vehicle ahead. In the accident, she was
hurt in the neck. She
will be off work and have to wear a neck brace
for 13 days. Her son and
the driver of the car with which she collided
were slightly hurt.
Christine
Mourtier asks for a technical examination of
the Renault Clio which she
was
driving and the provision of a replacement car
for work. On Monday, CEO
of
Renault Louis Schweitzer indicated that there
are around thirty cases
in
France where the function of the speed
regulator has been called into
question.
He dismisses the hypothesis of a failure in
the electronic system,
which
he attributes to incorrect use by the drivers,
to whom Renault offers
free
sessions where they can learn how to master
this device. AP REF:
Régulateurs
de vitesse: une automobiliste se retourne
contre Renault après
un
accident.
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