A few months ago I recall reading about a serious accident in which a Wrightbus NBFL had its throttle stuck open. Was there any follow up to the story and what caused it to jam open, and wether anyone was given the blame?
That's interesting. Are the footbrake, handbrake or Neutral gear selection button disabled when the throttle is open on one of those? The driver does appear to eventually attempt to select neutral (I assume that's what he's reaching for on his right hand side), but clearly without success.
Looking at the video again, and having driven a Wright Streetlite (which I assume are similar in terms of operation and cab layout) I can confirm that selecting neutral would usually put the bus in neutral, even if the throttle was open. However from the video he doesn't appear to attempt to select it, the button is to the right of the steering wheel, it's a simple 3 button DNR set up. When he turns to the right he appears to try and isolate the bus using the master switch, which is down the right hand side.
Presumably he suffered from rabbits in the headlights syndrome. I also find it hard to believe that the power of the bus was stronger then the operation of the disc brakes. Usually they can stop on a sixpence, if the driver so wanted to. This is why I asked if there was any further follow up as it doesn't add up to me.
A StreetLite will be capable of putting a lot less torque to the drive wheels than a New Routemaster, which has an electric motor as its form of propulsion and is thus capable of delivering a huge amount of power from zero revs if required (and permitted by the bus's control system). However, it is still true that in an emergency situation a full application of the footbrake will be more powerful than the electric motor.Looking at the video again, and having driven a Wright Streetlite (which I assume are similar in terms of operation and cab layout) I can confirm that selecting neutral would usually put the bus in neutral, even if the throttle was open. However from the video he doesn't appear to attempt to select it, the button is to the right of the steering wheel, it's a simple 3 button DNR set up. When he turns to the right he appears to try and isolate the bus using the master switch, which is down the right hand side.
Presumably he suffered from rabbits in the headlights syndrome. I also find it hard to believe that the power of the bus was stronger then the operation of the disc brakes. Usually they can stop on a sixpence, if the driver so wanted to. This is why I asked if there was any further follow up as it doesn't add up to me.
I'm surprised the rear platform conductor didn't attempt to intervene in some way once it was clear their driver had totally lost control
I'd also agree that the brakes should easily have overriden the drivetrain, or at the very least significantly reduced the speed of the bus.
I wonder how well all this speculation would've gone down on this forum had a train driver been involved....