A peaceful ride in the mountains almost turned into drama. Peter Rothschild, 69, a retired radiologist, was circulating last May on a steep road in northern California when he realized that his SUV from Volvo, a reference in terms of security, refused to brake.
HS brakes: Panic in the mountains, composure behind the wheel
Indeed, as the Wall Street Journal has so well reported, a retired doctor saw his mountain walk turned into a mechanical nightmare. At the wheel of his Volvo SUV, Peter Rothschild, a retired radiologist, was quietly rolling when an icing detail froze his blood: his brakes had stopped responding. “I continued to press the pedal, again and again … Nothing replied”he tells the American newspaper.
The scene, captured by an on -board camera, shows the vehicle hitting the slope at high speed. The slope was stiff, the speed increased, and each tight turn threatened to rush it into the void. The driver, all composure, makes a radical decision: project the car against a slope to stop his race.
The airbags are triggered, the SUV is damaged, but the man is except. “I could never have taken the next turn. Without that, I would have come out of the road ”he says.
A problem caused by … a software update
The survey reveals that his Volvo presented a braking defect directly linked to an update carried out during a manufacturer’s recall. Initially, the campaign was aimed at a reversing camera failure. But the new software, combined with other fixes, has introduced a critical bug into the braking system.
According to Volvo, this dysfunction can lead to total braking loss after about 1 minute and 40 seconds of continuous descent, without prior warning.
Faced with the severity of the problem, the Swedish manufacturer, anxious to preserve its reputation in terms of security, immediately stopped the deployment of updates and promised to correct “All the vehicles concerned as soon as possible”. Three other similar incidents have been identified.
To summarize
In California, a 69 -year -old pensioner voluntarily projected his Volvo SUV against a slope after a total brake failure on a mountain road. The failure, linked to a defective software update, prevented any braking after more than a minute and a half of descent. Volvo has recognized three similar cases and suspended the offending update to correct the problem.