Police Car Stops 100 MPH Honda Pilot Allegedly Having ‘Unintended Acceleration’ Malfunction

Law enforcement officers roll into work every day without knowing exactly what they’re going to face. For Trooper Zach Gruver, September 17th turned into a day where he would travel at over 130 miles per hour to save an 18-year-old in a reported runaway Honda Pilot. He pulled it off just in time too because the road was about to run out.

The incident happened just north of Fargo, North Dakota a little after 8:00 p.m. A call came in to say that a young man, Sam Dutcher, couldn’t get the car he was driving, a 2022 Honda Pilot, to slow down.

Dutcher tells local news InForum “I thought, ‘Hey, this thing is accelerating and my foot is not on the gas.” Soon after, he and his mother were on the phone with 911 hoping for help. Ultimately, it would come, but probably not in the way Dutcher expected. The dashcam video below reveals a great deal about the chase.

According to Inforum, Dutcher began his journey in Harwood, about 15 minutes north of Fargo. From there he started traveling east on 90th Avenue NW when the unintended acceleration allegedly began. Deputy Zach Johnson from the Clay County Sheriff’s Office offered suggestions.

“If you hit the brakes, nothing happens? Is the accelerator stuck down? Are you able to push the e-brake and just lock ’em up?” Deputy Johnson asked.

Evidently, none of these potential solutions worked so Johnson initially told Sam that the department would try stop sticks to slow the car down. After recognizing that wouldn’t work due to his speed, they had to think fast.

90th Avenue is about as straight as a road can get but it passes through a few uncontrolled intersections like the one at Highway 32. Officers raced ahead of Dutcher to close that intersection before he arrived. Video from the scene shows him racing through it at over 110 mph.

By that point, Sam had been on the road dealing with this for some 29 miles and things were about to get far more sketchy, according to Inforum. 90th Avenue NW runs out just six miles from the intersection at Highway 32. As such, officers had to think fast to solve the problem and speed became a life-saving measure. The video above shows Trooper Gruver speeding past the Honda in his Dodge Charger police cruiser and to get ahead of it.

Then, by slowing down directly in front of the car, the Honda’s anti-collision tech allegedly took over and began to slow the SUV. The ordeal wasn’t over though because, as we see in the video, at one point something changed and the Pilot lurched forward again and hit the patrol car as Gruver continued to slow down.

“That hit hard. It was like slowing down, slowing down, and then it wasn’t,” we can hear him say on bodycam footage from after the incident. “It’s a good thing we had a Charger,” he continued. None of the video from the scene shows any of the interaction between officers and Dutcher so we reached out for more information.

The Minnesota Highway Patrol tells The Autopian that Dutcher left the scene without any charges or citations that night. The vehicle is now at a local Honda dealer as part of an investigation into what happened that evening. The MHP didn’t confirm whether or not it personally checked to ensure that Dutcher’s telling of events was accurate but said that “From the information we had, none of those options (brakes, e-brake, neutral) worked.”

The Highway Patrol suggested we speak to the Clay County Sheriff’s Office who simply said “Nothing that was attempted to stop or slowed the vehicle worked.” We followed up to confirm that local law enforcement itself confirmed these things after the stop. We’re awaiting a reply. Notably, the authorities did file a report with NHTSA about the matter. Here’s what it says.

The state investigator indicated that while the 2022 Honda Pilot was being driven by the owner, the accelerator pedal had malfunctioned and the vehicle suddenly experienced unintended acceleration. During the incident, the vehicle’s speed had increased above 100 MPH. The driver was unable to stop or slow the vehicle when pressing the brake pedal or when activating the emergency brakes. A State Trooper Cruiser vehicle was used to forcefully ram into the side of the vehicle to make the vehicle reduce speed and eventually stop. During the incident, the driver sustained undetermined minor injuries. No further information was available. A police report was taken and the vehicle was towed to the local dealer. No further information was available. The manufacturer was not contacted by the investigator. The failure mileage was unknown.

That doesn’t tell us much more aside from the fact that this was a 2022 model and that Dutcher sustained minor injuries. For its part, Honda wouldn’t comment on the situation aside from to say that the car would need to go to a dealer before the company could determine anything.

The automaker issued the following statement to ABC News:

“We are grateful that the customer is safe … We cannot speculate about the issue experienced by the customer without a detailed inspection of the vehicle. We encourage the family to have the vehicle towed to an authorized Honda dealer to enable that inspection.”

At this stage, it’s anyone’s guess as to what went down inside of that Pilot that night but what’s clear is that the authorities were clearly willing to put their safety on the line to save this citizen.