gofaster72

Ya, what's the deal with these failsafe units? Do any of these trucks come with one or are you just supposed to make a guess at when your Rx is about to go off on it's own? How many bucks have these companies made off of selling spare parts on a module that should be required by law to protect the consumer. I think that the manufacturer should be held responsible for any personal or property damage caused by one of their vehicles if it runs away from the loss of signal from low voltage! ! ! ! [:@]

RcPunk87

You dont wanna break your truck buy a failsafe...It isnt the companys problem if YOU let your batteries voltage get low!

ThermalRD

LMAO...Is that post serious? Or are you just being funny?

sdavenport04

That's right. You cannot hold the companies responsible if you are the one that installs and is supposed to check the status of the radio/receiver batteries. Don't be ridiculous, just spend the $20-$25 and that will be the end of it. I got the Ofna micro fail safe, was a piece of cake to install, takes up close to no space and I now have a piece of mind while driving the truck - especially in small or crowded areas.

remten2001

well i been into this hobby for a long time and never bothered buying a fail safe..i alwasy make sure my batteries are toped off..That the only thing I do and have no plans to buy a fail safe either..It seems that I always end up reading someone with a fail safe that got a runaway that poeple who doesn't use them..

onecrzyrican

Dude, you have got to be kidding me. R/C companies are supposed to put failsafes in their cars cause your too dumb to know better? Gimme a break!! Check your damn batteries!! Go buy a tyco or a nikko and quit whinning. [>:]

joules

Careful of that hot coffee at Mcdonalds too. You better read all the warnings...

You have to take responsibility for yourself and your stuff. Companies are not responsible, you are. We may live in a litigation happy society but that does not make it right.
J~

fhm101

Laugh if you want guys, but the day will come when someone sues over this. I recently finished 4 long years of involvment in a civil suit and I'm here to tell you, civil litigation has nothing to do with what's right, legal, or who's responsible. It's all about whipping 12 people into a frenzy so they will be mad enough to want to punish someone for a supposed wrong, and then directing that anger at whoever has the deepest pockets. The only thing you can count on 100% in this type of thing is the winner, it's the lawyers every time.

If you run your toy cars in a public place or around other people you would be well advised to join the AMA. Their insurance will cover you in the event something does happen, and after seeing a guys calf get ripped open to the tune of 22 stitches to close it by a runaway 8th buggy you can bet I'm a member.

Texdav

I have been a member of AMA for years. If you think they are going to cover you bashing in anything other than a approved Flying field or track;think again. Even in most states your home owners will cover you first. I have seen tem refuse to accept a claim many times. Frankly your more likely to be covered by ROAR than AMA. Even then the coverage is limited. Even then if the person wants to sue you there is nothing stopping them claiming things that are not covered by either AMA or ROAR ;dealing with your usage or reckleseness. Also many times they will be more likely to file a bogus claim when they learn you have insurance. Dammed if you do and dammed if you don't.

fhm101

As I mentioned above about 4 years involved in a civil litigation matter, I'm somewhat of a fanatic about insurance and what it actually does and does not cover. Last winter we put on a money race and as one of the promoters I wanted to make sure what our potential liability would be and what it would take to cover it. As it turned out the facility we rented had our backs on that detail, but before we had that confirmed I did some in depth research into the subject to include phone conversations with both the individuals heading up the insurance programs for both the AMA and ROAR and this is what they has to say about their respective insurance programs. I am also very aware that a simple conversation is by no means a binding contract so take the following for whatever it's worth to you.

if you are a member of the AMA you are covered when operating any RC where ever you are doing it. The only exception to this is if you earn your living operating an RC.

The only thing ROAR will cover is an accident involving a registered ROAR member that occurs at a ROAR sanctioned event. Since most ROAR events below regional are not sanctioned, guess what. If you have a ROAR approved track and a non member gets hurt, sanctioned or not, you better have good insurance of your own. If you are a ROAR approved track and hold for example a club race with a payback program for the winners, or if you offer a certificate with a cash value (hobby shop gift certificate) you just lost any coverage ROAR may have offered.

gofaster72

I’d still like to know what the deal is here! I’ve got a ‘72' Chevelle in the carport that has a .030 over small block, stump puller Crane roller cam, 1.6:1 roller rockers, Edelebrock intake with two 500cfm spread bore four bbl Carbs, Mallory ignition, aluminum Trick Flow heads, Sanderson headers, 2.25 inch exhaust pipes, Hotchkis springs and bushings front and rear, heavy duty sway bars front and rear, Stewart Warner gauges, a Bow Tie tach and guess what, it has throttle return springs on the carbs. Had to add a couple because of the second carb, ya know. But guess what, it even came stock from GM with one. How clever of those fellows.
You see, if I’m on I75 watching a Porsche or a Beemer getting smaller in my mirror and the battery goes dead or the carb linkage would pop off, the car is going to come to a stop. It’s not going to crack the throttle plates wide open, go ballistic and jump off an overpass somewhere.
So I think how cute these little toy trucks are, I’m going to get one and pop over to the school a couple of blocks from my house and have a little fun with it.
So I search around and find this cute little truck and figure this looks like the one for me. It seems to have a lot of good reviews and most of the guys in these forums don’t seem to have many major problems with it. And the best thing is, it’s “ RTR � ! ! ! All the instructions say is that you just add fuel and some batteries and away you go. Nowhere do they say that this thing will turn into a 40 mph, five pound missile that will vault off a curb and hit some three year old girl, on the monkey bars, in the back of the head and damn near kill her when the batteries get low. “Always operate in a safe manner,� just doesn’t quite cover it.
So, like I said at the start of this thread, WHAT’S THE DEAL HERE ! ! Last but not least, I thought that the AMA was just for aircraft and the only time you were covered by their insurance was while you were flying at a authorized field run by a sanctioned club. If I’m wrong about this, then by all means, lets all join up.

RcPunk87

your reference to a car doesnt mean anything.. Thats a 2000-3000lb vehicle capable of reaching 100+mph...Batteries have nothing to do with your car speeding up....Alternator keeps car batts topped off...

I've had my batts get low on me...wow the throttle return spring does its job and closes the carb..

onecrzyrican

Sad, Sad, SAD. You are the perfect example of whats wrong with America these days. You come from the "is not my fault, lets blame someone else" generation. If you dont know how to operate a simple toy, just by making sure your batteries are charged at all times and writing down your drain times on them so you know when they are going to drop then shame on you. There should be laws against selling this kind of equipment to people like you. [:@]

fhm101

While the deal may be about why manufacturers don't put failsafes or throttle return springs on their so called RTR kits, the question that begs to be asked is, would you run your (nice) 1:1 car down the road without insurance?

The simple answer to why manufacturers don't supply these items is cost. Not the final cost of the toy, but preproduction cash outlay. A failsafe unit and return spring could be added for a few bucks per unit and taken by itself that number seems like nothing. Now take that few bucks and multipliy it by say a hundred thousand units in the initial production run. Now the addition of those couple extra components just pushed your preproduction cash outlay up a few hundred thousand dollars. I personally think that every rc vehicle should be equiped with at least a throttle return spring, and the so called RTR's that are targeted at the rc neophyte should add a failsafe as well, but I don't make the toys, I just play with them.

On the subject of insurance, if you have it and get involved in a situation where you are being sued over something that happed involving your toy car, even if the insurance is not so hot the bottom feeding sharks (read lawyers) will target your carrier. If you have no coverage, guess who they lock on? Then it's goodby house (if you own one), goodby nice car, goodby future earnings, etc., etc., etc. if you come out on the short end. If you had coverage, the worst that might happen is the company that covered you may refuse to do so again.

creyc

Are you mentally handicapped RcPunk?

That would make more sense to me then, as gofaster72's example was good COMPARISON of a toy and a larger, powerful muscle car. It stresses the importance that regardless of how innocent an RC car might look, they can in fact do property damage and cause personal injury, as with a real car.

It's important that any object capable of causing damage be under control at all times. This means having a failsafe to return the throttle to idle and apply brakes to stop an RC car if it gets out of range of the radio or by comparison having springs to return the throttle of a real car to idle if you lose control of the throttle directly. Cable failure would be the comparison to out of range on an RC car.

I agree it's important to have a failsafe, accidents happen, and while the failsafe may not prevent you from dropping the 8 stair in front of the school it will stop the car if you forgot to recharge the batteries as the car is halfway down the stairs.

RcPunk87

Creyc if your brain can't process what i said i suggest you going back to kindergarden!

gofaster72

Thanks to you guys that see the point that I'm trying to get across. I realize that it would cost the manufacture two or three bucks at the production end but by the time it got to the retail sale it would probably be ten. That's fine by me. If they didn't want to include it in the "RTR" package at least they could offer, or at least recommend that the customer use one. It's always the hidden dangers that jump up and bite you in the butt. You don't really need to put a warning sign on prop on a K&B 29 that is screaming at 18,000 rpm, or do you? I'm just saying that the manufactures should use some common sense in the warnings about the potential hazards that can be encountered when using their products.

As for the reference to the hot coffee at McDonald's, don't put a loaded shot gun in your mouth and have your buddy pull the trigger because they will both go off. Sorry, couldn't resist.

joules

Touche
I agree that it would not be a bad idea to include one, kind of like including an fuel filter. Implying that they are liable, finiancially or civily, if they do not include a failsafe is ludicrious.

I think that is what everyone is trying to get across to you.
J~

bonified5

OMG!!!! Hello, we are talking about little rc cars and trucks and planes here. All these big words are confusing me. It sounds like were talking about real cars here. All this insurance and reliability bull. Just get a failsafe! They know you will crash if you dont get one and therefor.......more parts which means more money for the manufacturer.