In another post I have bragged about Ann’s new smart car, 2015 Lincoln MKZ that turned out not to be very smart. I did say at the time that she replaced her 10-year-old Town Car that handled well, rode very comfortably and looked like new, but it did not have any electronic smarts. As Information Technology practitioners over the last 40 years and Engineers by trade, we wanted a car with electronic intelligence. We selected the Lincoln MKZ model with the “Technology Package” at an added cost of $1000.00 dollars. This car could do everything except drive itself. With adoptive cruise control, it automatically adjusts the speed to the freeway traffic. My S550 does not have that future nor does it park itself or keep me within the traffic lane and warm me to stop for a cup of coffee. ( if I appear tired when driving). The Lincoln MKZ did all that and could even park itself a feature we never used. We both had a lot of fun driving it, but this “Technology package” almost got her killed yesterday inside the Gold’s Gym parking lot in Montclair Ca. as she was trying to park it at speed less than 3 miles per hour. Based on Ann’s description of the incident it appeared like the car “was spooked” just as she turned to park facing a parked car. I described the incident to many friends and there appeared to be a consensus that avoidance of very major damage and injury was a miracle. I concurred and added the possibility of” Quantum Phenomena” an alternate explanation for those scientists who don’t believe on miracles. The question now is: Why did the smart car accelerate unexpectedly when it was about to be parked. Was it a driver error, a programming error or was it an electronic malfunction?

An objective experienced analyst would investigate the two possibilities. 1) a foreign object pressed the accelerator an argument of the dealer 2) A programming error in the adaptive cruise control and or electronic malfunction caused by environmental condition that affected the program. Such electronic malfunctions are known to happen in electronics at extreme temperature variations. The temperature was around 70 degrees under partly cloudy skies. Clearly the adaptive cruise control was triggered on by some signal and the brake was rendered inactive. The cruise control should not be activated on that low speed and it is There must be a programming error. Ann an assembly programming expert believes she can find the error if she can look at the code.

On or about three in the afternoon yesterday February 4, 2016 she was meeting me at Gold’s Gym right across and North of the Montclair shopping Center where we regularly go to exercise. “She explained later that she had entered the parking area from the South and drove to a parking area directly in front of the Gym. There were two rows of cars parked there, between a North bound and a South bound isle. She turned into the North bound isle to park in an available stall next to a Northbound parked white Toyota that was facing Northeast. As soon as she turned into the parking stall the car accelerated like someone was stepping on the accelerator while she was stepping on the brake and trying stop it but the breaks had no effect and the car continue to accelerate. She turned right and scrapped the Toya on the rear right bumper with her left front and kept going through the an open Southbound stalls to the Southbound isle. She still could not stop the car, hit the curb with the rear right wheel and still she managed to navigate through the Wells Fargo parking lot and through one narrow “night deposit lane” where she hit another curb with the right front wheel. Immediately after that she says that she regained control of the car and successfully parked it in the Southwest location of the Parking lot”.