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What the heck is wrong with people???

The fire is unusual, but getting stuck and revving the engine back and forth is quite common. It will continue until engine overheats and dies and will not restart. Have one across the street right now. Supposed to get off street for snow plow, pulls into back yard, gets stuck and there it sits, hood open.

Guess they closed hood now but car still sitting there for over five days now.

Few years ago I watched one, same house , different people. Tires smoking, tore engine mounts loose so exhaust pipe broke off.
 
Just when you think you have seen the limits of human stupidity, something like that happens. I really think driver training for snow country should include a test on how to get around in deep snow and get un stuck.
 
62-year-old driver just remined in his car while it burnt up! He just stayed in the car. Why not roll a window down and get out before you burn up?
 
When i was in high school, the sheriff was a huge guy, he could barley walk, he got stuck in the snow,he kept spinning the tires until they melted, or basically ruined them, but didn't burn the car up,i remember seeing it in Cenex station getting new tires put on, why he didn't call for help is beyond me!
 
Why do you even have to open a window? Open the door and step out like you have every other day for the last 62 years. Got to be more to this story.
 
I just figured that when he slid off the road and went into the ditch, that he may have blocked his doors with piled up snow.
 
(quoted from post at 19:39:10 02/04/21) 62-year-old driver just remined in his car while it burnt up! He just stayed in the car. Why not roll a window down and get out before you burn up?
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I feel bad for the guy but maybe it was less painful than having to go home and hear about it from the Mrs..
 
He might have had an emergency medical condition and wasnt thinking right. Sometimes people have a panic attack over the smallest things. The other day on the highway I came up on a pickup that had gone in the ditch. It did not spin out , it just went in the snow filled ditch and was hung up on the snow. Both doors were open, the backup lights were on, the left front wheel was spinning slowly and the driver was walking toward a car that had stopped to help him out. The driver was obviously shook up. It happens.
 
Some people have no ability to cope with inconvenience.

Every incident triggers anger, rage, panic, and fear.

Once in that state of mind it becomes impossible to think clearly. He probably was having such a panic attack he just lost all sense of reason and cognitive thinking.

I saw the aftermath of a rage incident where a car failed to start, the driver took the battery out, and slammed it on top of the engine. It was his final act, he died on the spot of a heart attack! Drugs and alcohol were involved.

The fire was probably a result of the underside of the car surrounded with snow which cut off air flow around the cat converters. The extended engine revving caused the cats to overheat, igniting some nearby flammable component, possibly the carpet inside the cabin.
 
Probably a transmission failure, either heat or broken case, got ATF on the exhaust. Hot ATF on hot exhaust = instant fire. This is one reason why most makers have eliminated the traditional dipstick tube and went to sealed transmissions, less chance of ATF puking on hot exhaust.
 
(quoted from post at 22:00:00 02/04/21) Why do you even have to open a window? Open the door and step out like you have every other day for the last 62 years. Got to be more to this story.
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Hard to say exactly what happened, strange things occur when wires start melting.

Back in the 80's a neighbor had a Monte Carlo he was working on when a fire started under the hood, I watched it happen and it took no time at all for the fire to spread to the interior.

I grabbed a fire extinguisher and went to open a door but the power locks had locked them, just as I was in mid swing with the fire extinguisher to break a window out the passenger side window started to go down by itself.

Fire was put out and the whole incident lasted less than a minute but that was enough to write the car off.
 
Who would think revving an engine would do any more than getting the vehicle more stuck. Had to be a defect in the car somewhere. He may have damaged a fuel line when he went down the embankment. More than likely the doors were locked automatically from him trying to drive it. Chalk it up to the someones bright idea of safety equipment.
 
I second your the safety equipment being the fault of not being able to get out. The car was probably still in drive when it caught fire and doors would not unlock. In a panic he didn't react quick enough to come up with a alternative plan. Maybe he had a medical issue which caused the whole problem to begin with and was not alert or passed out.
 
The safety equipment is to keep dumb kids from popping the doors open and diving out while you go down the highway. After all they've never seen anyone get hurt by diving out of a moving vehicle, so it must be okay. You're lying to them trying to tell them that diving out of the car is a bad idea, just like eating Tide pods.
 

A wee bit similar to what happened in Kincardine last summer .
Elderly couple were parking their vehicle in the marina lot . Driver had the throttle and brake mixed up . Bounded over the curb , over the lawn , side walk , docks and into the harbour .
All kinds of fit young people tried to help diving in and swimming down to the vehicle . Vehicle Doors were electrically locked and driver/passenger did not think to unlock the doors or power the windows down . The couple drowned after a few minutes .
 
Barny ..... sounds like you are referring to all those "dumb kids" that are maybe 2 or 3 years old hitting the door locks and eating detergent pods. Good thing you and I were brilliant at that age (or lucky).
 

Reading the article.....

The cops were on the scene before anything bad happened. Told him to get out. He did not.
Probably got ------ off and floored it into the self distruction mode.
Hence the "popping sound" before it quite and caught on fire.

How come the cops did not have one of those pointy window breakers to get in??
 
I believe the said something about the doors being jammed. Nothing about the article made any sense. Something ore going on than mentioned in the article.
 
My best friend, that I worked with for 30 years, used to discuss "What's wrong with people now days?". We came to the conclusion that; We grew up learning how to solve problems. If your car wouldn't run, you learned to fix it. If you got stuck, you learned, or were taught how to get out. You didn't call triple A, or the plumber, or the tow truck, because they weren't there, or you couldn't afford them Most of us, either know how to figure out a problem, or are associated with a circle of friends that can help you figure it out. That culture is becoming smaller as farms, small repair shops, and machine shops disappear.
 
Barney ..... re-reading your reply, I think I missed your point so scratch my earlier reply to yours. I think you were saying the same thing I did ..... maybe?
 
Not sure where you got that from. I have NEVER seen transmission fluid come back up out of a dipstick tube on a car that actually ran. Certainly not a reason for sealed transmissions or elimination of dipsticks.

Personally, I think it was done to save money on parts, assembly time, and to defeat DIY guys. My opinion.
 
Quite a few years ago , a young trapper got his pickup stuck checking his traps and started truck on fire . Called fire department and they came ,but he was 80 rods off road and the frost had just gone out and they couldn't get to it.He came to get my tractor to pull the truck up close to the road so the insurance agent would look at it.
 
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