An 87 year old geezer backs up in to another car, SLOWLY, nothing sudden about it.
Then, instead of pushing the shifter UP in to Park, he goes down in to Drive. Then he's probably already panicked, obviously making bad decisions about which gear to choose, and you blame ... electronics?
So much driver error it's not even funny.
Of course the engine was revving loudly, the guy hit the gas instead of the brakes.
Your 2nd link shows the same video, so I watched it again.
The 87 year old backs up slowly and hits the car, plus his steering doesn't really make sense, he goes straight in to the other car even though there is an empty space next to it.
So he's steering improperly, backing up very slowly, and causes a collision. I don't see any way that could be blamed on electronics.
Even pulling away, the car isn't accelerating that fast, and the driver doesn't really steer at all. I wonder if he had a heart attack prior to the first collision? That would explain the multiple mistakes he made.
ROFLMAO. Yup, must have been the driver's fault. Maybe toyota needs to stop selling their cars to the older drivers? You need to be under 50 to buy?
>instead of pushing the shifter UP in to Park, he goes down in to Drive.
Yup, that's a logical error. Pull down instead of pushing up when he intended to put it in park after tapping the bumper of the car behind him. Maybe we can blame it on a stroke or heart attack? Strange that kind of medical problem wasn't mentioned from an autopsy. So we can overlook that excuse. Maybe he had sludge or gelling in his arteries from driving a toyota?
Notice the high acceleration effort from the little 4-cyl engine to push that car in front of him out of way. That's not someone with their foot lightly trying to go forward gently. That's an out-of-control electronic throttle problem. :P
We have an 87 year old gambler, walks out of a bar, no less, backs up slowly and saws the steering wheel to one side, then the other, aimlessly, and BANG hits a car behind him.
Fight or flight response -> he panics, instead of stopping to survey the damage, goes to Drive, goes forward, again slowly, hits another car, only then does the Toyota take off...
Nobody cares about another continent. It always amazes me people who are so concerned about the world car market or the car market in other countries. Who cares? Its not the US car market. I'm only concerned with the offerings and reputations here in the states since that is what we get to choose from. I could care less who is number 1 in China, South America, Europe, etc, etc.
toyota should only sell cars to those under 50 because their cars are too dangerous for those older, less experienced drivers to handle. You're agreeing with me by pointing that out. :mad:
> gambler,
We'll have to put into advertisements that anyone who buys lottery tickets or goes to casinos also shouldn't buy toyotas.
>bar,
Again, just like toyota about the sludge, you're trying to blame the driver of these runaway cars as if there's absolutely no potential for there to be a problem that hasn't already been used as a shill by toyota to pretend they fixed all the problems. Remember back at the first expose of this when folks said it couldn't be the cars. Then it was the floor mats, maybe. Then it was the accelerator pedals too long. Then it was, well, maybe, the mechanical electrical part of the accelerator in the drive-by-wire.
Gotta quit just passing it off as the driver's fault. :P
Did you read the article? "The video came from a camera mounted above an off-track betting parlor in the strip mall. Playing the horses was one of Przybylowski's favorite hobbies. Employees there say alcohol would not have contributed to the crash because Przybylowski was not a drinker.
""I've never seen the man have a drink here," said Cody Cherniak, a betting parlor employee."
Jim, if it were just one accident like with the Buick, that'd be another story. But even before the Saylor accident (obviously, he wasn't elderly plus had police driving training), the insurance industry noted a higher percentage of Toyotas with drivers claiming UA than other makes. If it were all senior-driving error, we'd still be seeing Buicks getting away from their drivers. But Buick hasn't had to cut off gas pedals. In my Cobalt, I could have three mats on top of each other and not touch the gas pedal.
2024 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray 2LT; 2019 Chevrolet Equinox LT; 2015 Chevrolet Cruze LS
You should care, the US is sliding away in terms of relevance...what the rest of the world wants directly influences what we get, and will only do so more in the future.
Did you catch it? He says that in all the years his father was a delivery driver, he never had any 'major' crashes. Just sorta rolled off his tongue too quickly and easily....enough so i was left with the impression he had more than just one or two fender benders in the past.
I think the first crash here, flustered him, and he put it into drive to pull away (of course the normal and correct thing to do would have been Park Brake and Park) but many people would pull away first. Some would even try to run and leave the scene.
If you look very very closely (and this will come out in court if prosecution is worth their weight in the slightest) that once into Drive he does not immediately speed off. He goes about 3 to 5 feet, then you see the car lurch with aggressive acceleration. This was him being flustered by what just happened and stood on the gas instead of the brake. In which case, of course witnesses heard a revving motor. The guy had transformed into Unintended Mario Andretti at that point.
ok, all that said..probably not in a Corolla, but you have to admit that there is a LOT of electronic interference in today's cars. Because of stability control, the car actually does have the ability to release a brake from one wheel and apply it to another. Whenever you have electronics with this much control, and with so many other computerized parameters involved to process and execute that control, possibly...just possibly moving a shifter to neutral lets you go thru the motions with the shifter linkage, but deep down below in the depths of all the electronic wizardry going on IN your tranny and engine and brake systems...just maybe, if the planets are aligned just right, bad crap happens..pretty much a stretch tho.
In this unfortunate case, I think it should be reasonably assumed that, on dry pavement, at parking lot speeds, that Corolla's meagre 125 hp could have been kept under raps, had the brakes been put into use..JMO.
State Farm Warned Regulators About Toyota Unintended Acceleration As Early As 2007
State Farm, the US’ largest automotive insurance company, began warning federal regulators in 2007 about unintended acceleration in Toyotas, the Washington Post reports. Yet the National Highway Traffic Safety did not begin to act for more than a year after State Farm’s initial alerts.
You should care, the US is sliding away in terms of relevance...what the rest of the world wants directly influences what we get, and will only do so more in the future.
Just as people in the Midwest don't give a rat's whatever about how they do things in CA. Yet the cars they are allowed to buy are totally controlled by what CA says is ok to drive. The same could go for the Chinese market. You want cars, this is what you get. Our relevance as you stated is having less and less impact on the rest of the World. Our leaders may soon be bowing to China and Russia. Oh, I forgot they already do. Ahnold is buddies with the Russians & planning a ski trip together.
MOSCOW (AP) - The Russian president and the Terminator are tweeting - and may soon go skiing together.
President Dmitry Medvedev met then-California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger during a visit to Silicon Valley last year and later welcomed him to Moscow to show him plans for Russia's high-tech hub.
On Schwarzenegger's last day in office, the Russian president sent him a message on Twitter saying "there are many more interesting opportunities still to come."
Schwarzenegger tweeted that he was anxious to meet again and suggested they go skiing. Medvedev tweeted back Tuesday that they would "definitely find the time."
If Toyota and the NHTSA had not been sleeping together or should I say asleep. They could have listened to the people paying for the wrecks and avoided several more tragedies.
Remember back at the first expose of this when folks said it couldn't be the cars. Then it was the floor mats, maybe. Then it was the accelerator pedals too long. Then it was, well, maybe, the mechanical electrical part of the accelerator in the drive-by-wire.
Gotta quit just passing it off as the driver's fault.
For the record - I never said any of those things. I was the one saying let's wait and see. Search for it.
The Saylor family might still be alive if that had been done. Terrible tragedies.
And to blame the drivers for all of those accidents is unforgiveable. Driver error might be a factor in a small percentage.
In the Corolla, to blame the driver just because he's older than the ones doing the blaming, and to blame that he was drinking when obviously the attorney has a blood alcohol test to show he wasn't or else the attorney wouldn't have filed the case and wasted the court time. And to impune the character of the worked at the betting store by saying that she was lying to protect her culpability in the accident is also not right.
Did you catch it? He says that in all the years his father was a delivery driver, he never had any 'major' crashes. Just sorta rolled off his tongue too quickly and easily....enough so i was left with the impression he had more than just one or two fender benders in the past.
We can add 2 more, since he hit 2 cars before there was any full throttle.
Watch the video again...
* he backs up very, very slowly * he turns the wheel to the left * then he turns the wheel to the right * then he turns the wheel to the left again, and... * BAM, he hits the other car
Why the erratic steering? Was he not looking where he was going?
The driver is CLEARLY impaired, c'mon folks, open your eyes, take off those blinders.
And I do recall that being said as claimed. That is right.
However, here the driver is being blamed in these posts today as an incompetent aged driver, who was drunk, who was a bad human for being at a betting parlor.
(I plan to buy some MegaMillions tickets today for $290,000,000 or so.) And I have never been in a casino.
the driver is being blamed in these posts today as an incompetent aged driver, who was drunk
A-ha!
Wrong again. That's twice now.
I should sue you for libel. :P
I never said he was drunk. I said he was in a bar, and the driving is quite obviously impaired. I even went as far as saying it may have been a heart attack or something else that impaired him.
However, I will say this:
HE WAS OBVIOUSLY IMPAIRED.
You can quote me on that. Back up slow, left, right, then left, BUMP, then leave the scene. All before the Corolla ever sped.
I have watched it numerous times before doing my post. While I can see why you might proclaim he was impaired, impaired by what? Alcohol? A stiff neck? Being dark out? Being past his more competent years to be able to drive responsibly?
FWIW, i agree he looked impaired, but in these days, when you hear that term, people assume you imply with alcohol.
I think his driving ability was impaired. And that is why I say he (probably) screwed up when he went to put his foot on the brake after pulling forward slowly, but obviously put it on the gas instead.
I know elderly drivers. I have known two that were more capable at 87 than many at 70. One I was a passenger in on a slippery road and he was able to steer and brake gingerly without slidding right into a car that pulled out in front of us. His reaction was no accident (pun intended) he actually still exhibited skills. Others tho NEVER had skills even when they were in their 20's.
So while age IS most definitely a factor, I think every single one of these cases, (especially ones were an elderly driver is involved) must be judged, each as individual cases. The ramifications of finger-pointing and assumptions, is too serious to slot 'em all together, just cuz the rest of us want to move on. That is one of the problems in this world. We all want to be able to get our head around something so we can put it to rest, so we slot. We slot; things, people, dog breeds...hell, we even slot interpretations of laws. Some of us do not easily fit into a perfect slot of understandability or acceptance. I happen to be one of those very people. Hard to slot.
Sync-like. Any idea if the underpinnings are really Sync? Ford's exclusive deal with Microsoft expired a few years back, and the Bing link-up makes me wonder if there's a lot of Microsoft under the hood.
Thanks for the link to the source, but they're talking about one model year, 2007.
No, that was an independent consultant in 2008, not State Farm. State Farm started warning the NHTSA AS EARLY AS 2007. Toyota and the NHTSA paid NO attention. This consultant found that the 2007 Camry and the rebadged ES350 had a LOT of SUA cases compared to other makes. We know that it was still an issue as late as the 2009 model ES350. It really makes little difference to the dead, if it was a poorly designed mat, pedal or control device. Only those that are mourning for them.
” But NHTSA apparently hasn’t been paying attention to the information it has collected. Randy Whitfield, a Maryland consultant, using data from NHTSA, two years ago determined that the 2007 Toyota Camry and Lexus ES 350 had excess injuries due to unexpected acceleration. State Farm insures more than 40 million customers.
As we know from the C4C debacle the NHTSA was poorly managed. :shades:
Interesting. In today's USA Today, it was reported that since 1980, 42% of law-enforcement personnel killed in auto crashes were NOT wearing seat belts. In CA, the number of deaths is over 100.
You know, after finding that there are 40-something new posts in this forum today, I still think the UA of Toyotas has been way overblown.
Yet I'm still glad that their market share is going down. They have gotten too big, too lazy, too unethical, and their cars are made with lousy quality as compared to a decade ago.
I HATE big companies that are mediocre and take advantage of their customers. First there was GM. Now there is Toyota. And there are other *ahem* financial institutions that fall into that category. I wish nothing but declining business for all of them. :mad:
Toyota is the only major automaker that did not gain in sales over 2009. Ford tops the list with 19% gain over 2009 Ford also passed up GM in Canada for the first time.
TOTAL TOYOTA sales Dec 2010 177,488 Dec 2009 187,860 -2.0 Year end 2010 1,763,595 Year end 2009 1,770,149 0.3
I think Toyota meant to say Minus 0.3% for year end.
I still think the UA of Toyotas has been way overblown.
Yet I'm still glad that their market share is going down
You know what? I feel more or less the same way.
I think they deserve to lose sales and market share when they cut costs and start using cheaper materials, examples include the Sienna's glove box and the dryer-lint-over-cardboard headliner on the Highlander. Or bad updates like the Scions have received.
That's fine, and deserved.
It bugs me, though, when people grasp on to sludge or SUA to defame a brand overall. The bias is often obvious. They'll believe any bad news, no matter how far fetched. Sikes, 3-armed grandmas, and today the world's most impaired driver (regardless of the reason for the impairment).
I guess what we can conclude is that people will believe what they want to believe, and not let silly things like the truth get in the way.
Not just the Toyota bashers that want a piece of Toyota. If it is only $230,000 as stated, they would be crazy to let it go to court. If Toyota thinks they have great lawyers, they have not met the Insurance company lawyers.
LOS ANGELES - Seven insurance companies are suing Toyota Motor Corp. in an attempt to recover money paid to cover crashes they blame on sudden acceleration.
The Los Angeles Times reports American Automobile Insurance Co., Fireman's Fund Insurance, National Surety Corp., Ameriprise Insurance, IDS Property Casualty Insurance, Motorists Mutual Insurance and American Hardware Mutual Insurance seek damages in excess of $230,000 from 14 crashes throughout the United States. The lawsuits were filed Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court.
The insurers cite data that blames 725 crashes on sudden acceleration and fault Toyota for failing to equip its cars with an override system that would cause a car to idle if the brake and gas were deployed simultaneously.
SC, IS and GS sales were down. No surprise, all those are near the end of their life cycle. Lexus trucks all did well, though.
Toyota trucks and SUVs also did well, beating the market.
Losses came from Scion (all models), which will not surprise anyone here, and the Yaris. I bet it's improved competition - Fiesta, Mazda2, etc. hurting that model.
The silver lining is that the losses were all low-priced, low-margin vehicles. Their profitable models actually had pretty decent gains.
Comments
An 87 year old geezer backs up in to another car, SLOWLY, nothing sudden about it.
Then, instead of pushing the shifter UP in to Park, he goes down in to Drive. Then he's probably already panicked, obviously making bad decisions about which gear to choose, and you blame ... electronics?
So much driver error it's not even funny.
Of course the engine was revving loudly, the guy hit the gas instead of the brakes.
The 87 year old backs up slowly and hits the car, plus his steering doesn't really make sense, he goes straight in to the other car even though there is an empty space next to it.
So he's steering improperly, backing up very slowly, and causes a collision. I don't see any way that could be blamed on electronics.
Even pulling away, the car isn't accelerating that fast, and the driver doesn't really steer at all. I wonder if he had a heart attack prior to the first collision? That would explain the multiple mistakes he made.
So he's saying the old man crashed in to the car behind him, then crashed in to the car in front of him, yet he was a skilled driver.
Sadly, Darwin was right.
Yup, must have been the driver's fault. Maybe toyota needs to stop selling their cars to the older drivers? You need to be under 50 to buy?
>instead of pushing the shifter UP in to Park, he goes down in to Drive.
Yup, that's a logical error. Pull down instead of pushing up when he intended to put it in park after tapping the bumper of the car behind him.
Maybe we can blame it on a stroke or heart attack? Strange that kind of medical problem wasn't mentioned from an autopsy. So we can overlook that excuse. Maybe he had sludge or gelling in his arteries from driving a toyota?
Notice the high acceleration effort from the little 4-cyl engine to push that car in front of him out of way. That's not someone with their foot lightly trying to go forward gently. That's an out-of-control electronic throttle problem. :P
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Fight or flight response -> he panics, instead of stopping to survey the damage, goes to Drive, goes forward, again slowly, hits another car, only then does the Toyota take off...
...and it's the car's fault?
I like that it tethers to an existing smart phone. That hopefully means not another monthly bill to pay for those services.
toyota should only sell cars to those under 50 because their cars are too dangerous for those older, less experienced drivers to handle. You're agreeing with me by pointing that out. :mad:
> gambler,
We'll have to put into advertisements that anyone who buys lottery tickets or goes to casinos also shouldn't buy toyotas.
>bar,
Again, just like toyota about the sludge, you're trying to blame the driver of these runaway cars as if there's absolutely no potential for there to be a problem that hasn't already been used as a shill by toyota to pretend they fixed all the problems. Remember back at the first expose of this when folks said it couldn't be the cars. Then it was the floor mats, maybe. Then it was the accelerator pedals too long. Then it was, well, maybe, the mechanical electrical part of the accelerator in the drive-by-wire.
Gotta quit just passing it off as the driver's fault. :P
Did you read the article?
"The video came from a camera mounted above an off-track betting parlor in the strip mall. Playing the horses was one of Przybylowski's favorite hobbies. Employees there say alcohol would not have contributed to the crash because Przybylowski was not a drinker.
""I've never seen the man have a drink here," said Cody Cherniak, a betting parlor employee."
ROFLMAO :P
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
And wasn't he driving a Buick?
Buick Plows Through Market, Killing 9
Tests turned up no signs of booze or drugs in his system. But since he was driving a Buick, this had to be driver error. Right?
Where's the plural come in?
CAR, not cars. We're talking about this specific video.
Can you tell me, in all honesty, that you think this driver was not impaired?
Look at him, he backs up slowly, turns one way, turns the other, hits the car, then pulls forward slowly without turning the steering wheel.
I challenge you to answer the question - did his driving not appear impaired to you?
Don't be a coward, answer, straight up.
So let me get this straight: a bartender who probably makes his living on tips from his clients is saying this "regular" didn't ever drink?
Did you ever stop to think that Cody may have SERVED the drinks and could therefore be in trouble for it?
In related news, his lawyers want money, water is wet, and death is fatal.
Source please?
The NHTSA data that was analyzed showed Toyota SUA was at HALF the rate of Ford's prior to the Saylor accident.
Not zero, mind you, I doubt any manufacturer could claim that.
Did you catch it? He says that in all the years his father was a delivery driver, he never had any 'major' crashes. Just sorta rolled off his tongue too quickly and easily....enough so i was left with the impression he had more than just one or two fender benders in the past.
I think the first crash here, flustered him, and he put it into drive to pull away (of course the normal and correct thing to do would have been Park Brake and Park) but many people would pull away first. Some would even try to run and leave the scene.
If you look very very closely (and this will come out in court if prosecution is worth their weight in the slightest) that once into Drive he does not immediately speed off. He goes about 3 to 5 feet, then you see the car lurch with aggressive acceleration. This was him being flustered by what just happened and stood on the gas instead of the brake. In which case, of course witnesses heard a revving motor. The guy had transformed into Unintended Mario Andretti at that point.
ok, all that said..probably not in a Corolla, but you have to admit that there is a LOT of electronic interference in today's cars. Because of stability control, the car actually does have the ability to release a brake from one wheel and apply it to another. Whenever you have electronics with this much control, and with so many other computerized parameters involved to process and execute that control, possibly...just possibly moving a shifter to neutral lets you go thru the motions with the shifter linkage, but deep down below in the depths of all the electronic wizardry going on IN your tranny and engine and brake systems...just maybe, if the planets are aligned just right, bad crap happens..pretty much a stretch tho.
In this unfortunate case, I think it should be reasonably assumed that, on dry pavement, at parking lot speeds, that Corolla's meagre 125 hp could have been kept under raps, had the brakes been put into use..JMO.
State Farm Warned Regulators About Toyota Unintended Acceleration As Early As 2007
State Farm, the US’ largest automotive insurance company, began warning federal regulators in 2007 about unintended acceleration in Toyotas, the Washington Post reports. Yet the National Highway Traffic Safety did not begin to act for more than a year after State Farm’s initial alerts.
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2010/02/state-farm-warned-regulators-about-toyo- ta-unintended-acceleration-as-early-as-2007/
Just as people in the Midwest don't give a rat's whatever about how they do things in CA. Yet the cars they are allowed to buy are totally controlled by what CA says is ok to drive. The same could go for the Chinese market. You want cars, this is what you get. Our relevance as you stated is having less and less impact on the rest of the World. Our leaders may soon be bowing to China and Russia. Oh, I forgot they already do. Ahnold is buddies with the Russians & planning a ski trip together.
MOSCOW (AP) - The Russian president and the Terminator are tweeting - and may soon go skiing together.
President Dmitry Medvedev met then-California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger during a visit to Silicon Valley last year and later welcomed him to Moscow to show him plans for Russia's high-tech hub.
On Schwarzenegger's last day in office, the Russian president sent him a message on Twitter saying "there are many more interesting opportunities still to come."
Schwarzenegger tweeted that he was anxious to meet again and suggested they go skiing. Medvedev tweeted back Tuesday that they would "definitely find the time."
>State Farm, the US’ largest automotive insurance company, began warning federal regulators in 2007 about unintended acceleration in Toyotas,
I notice State Farm is talking about carS, not car!!!
ROFL.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Gotta quit just passing it off as the driver's fault.
For the record - I never said any of those things. I was the one saying let's wait and see. Search for it.
And to blame the drivers for all of those accidents is unforgiveable. Driver error might be a factor in a small percentage.
In the Corolla, to blame the driver just because he's older than the ones doing the blaming, and to blame that he was drinking when obviously the attorney has a blood alcohol test to show he wasn't or else the attorney wouldn't have filed the case and wasted the court time. And to impune the character of the worked at the betting store by saying that she was lying to protect her culpability in the accident is also not right.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
We can add 2 more, since he hit 2 cars before there was any full throttle.
Watch the video again...
* he backs up very, very slowly
* he turns the wheel to the left
* then he turns the wheel to the right
* then he turns the wheel to the left again, and...
* BAM, he hits the other car
Why the erratic steering? Was he not looking where he was going?
The driver is CLEARLY impaired, c'mon folks, open your eyes, take off those blinders.
Also:
NHTSA apparently hasn’t been paying attention to the information it has collected
But we've seen that the NHTSA's data would have pointed them towards invenstigating Ford, not Toyota, for SUA prior to Saylor's crash.
And I do recall that being said as claimed. That is right.
However, here the driver is being blamed in these posts today as an incompetent aged driver, who was drunk, who was a bad human for being at a betting parlor.
(I plan to buy some MegaMillions tickets today for $290,000,000 or so.) And I have never been in a casino.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Do you think the driver was impaired?
A simple yes or no will do. Preferably after you take off the blinders. LOL
You're making a lot of assumptions.
Remember, I saw an on TV for attorneys asking dead people to call them.
A-ha!
Wrong again. That's twice now.
I should sue you for libel. :P
I never said he was drunk. I said he was in a bar, and the driving is quite obviously impaired. I even went as far as saying it may have been a heart attack or something else that impaired him.
However, I will say this:
HE WAS OBVIOUSLY IMPAIRED.
You can quote me on that. Back up slow, left, right, then left, BUMP, then leave the scene. All before the Corolla ever sped.
The more I read about it, the more I like it.
They confirm no data plan to pay for.
HD radio is added. Nice, that's free and HD quality sound.
Natural speech recognition.
iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android! They nailed it if the hype is all true.
I hope this trickles in to Subaru products. In fact it would be cool if it debuted on the FT-86.
FWIW, i agree he looked impaired, but in these days, when you hear that term, people assume you imply with alcohol.
I think his driving ability was impaired. And that is why I say he (probably) screwed up when he went to put his foot on the brake after pulling forward slowly, but obviously put it on the gas instead.
I know elderly drivers. I have known two that were more capable at 87 than many at 70. One I was a passenger in on a slippery road and he was able to steer and brake gingerly without slidding right into a car that pulled out in front of us. His reaction was no accident (pun intended) he actually still exhibited skills. Others tho NEVER had skills even when they were in their 20's.
So while age IS most definitely a factor, I think every single one of these cases, (especially ones were an elderly driver is involved) must be judged, each as individual cases. The ramifications of finger-pointing and assumptions, is too serious to slot 'em all together, just cuz the rest of us want to move on. That is one of the problems in this world. We all want to be able to get our head around something so we can put it to rest, so we slot. We slot; things, people, dog breeds...hell, we even slot interpretations of laws.
Some of us do not easily fit into a perfect slot of understandability or acceptance. I happen to be one of those very people. Hard to slot.
Someone has already concluded the blood-alcohol level was zero, even though we don't have that information.
They also concluded it was not health-related, even though we don't know that either.
I'll go with my usual "wait and see" approach.
But look at the driving, that is impaired driving, as you've also stated. If you search for impaired driving on YouTube, that video should come up.
I can imagine it now...
* Turn left at the .... Blue Screen of Death!
Entune had better be good, given they've had time to evaluate competing systems.
No, that was an independent consultant in 2008, not State Farm. State Farm started warning the NHTSA AS EARLY AS 2007. Toyota and the NHTSA paid NO attention. This consultant found that the 2007 Camry and the rebadged ES350 had a LOT of SUA cases compared to other makes. We know that it was still an issue as late as the 2009 model ES350. It really makes little difference to the dead, if it was a poorly designed mat, pedal or control device. Only those that are mourning for them.
” But NHTSA apparently hasn’t been paying attention to the information it has collected. Randy Whitfield, a Maryland consultant, using data from NHTSA, two years ago determined that the 2007 Toyota Camry and Lexus ES 350 had excess injuries due to unexpected acceleration. State Farm insures more than 40 million customers.
As we know from the C4C debacle the NHTSA was poorly managed. :shades:
Are you certain that this was the only incident involving a Buick?
Can you be sure that the spinmeisters at Government Motors & their UAW cronies haven't been using our tax dollars to pay for a cover-up?
NHTSA was poorly managed
I won't argue with that. :shades:
So much for driver "professionalism".
Too much blood pressure meds can cause one to faint, as an example...
And, a much higher % of older folks are on prescription meds...
But there is no question about it - that driver was impaired in some way.
Who backs up that slowly and left/right/left into another car?
That video shows who is jumping to conclusions - the media and Toyota haters.
This guy was in diabetic shock, and the officer tased him repeatedly.
Yet I'm still glad that their market share is going down. They have gotten too big, too lazy, too unethical, and their cars are made with lousy quality as compared to a decade ago.
I HATE big companies that are mediocre and take advantage of their customers. First there was GM. Now there is Toyota. And there are other *ahem* financial institutions that fall into that category. I wish nothing but declining business for all of them. :mad:
Ford tops the list with 19% gain over 2009
Ford also passed up GM in Canada for the first time.
TOTAL TOYOTA sales
Dec 2010 177,488 Dec 2009 187,860 -2.0
Year end 2010 1,763,595 Year end 2009 1,770,149 0.3
I think Toyota meant to say Minus 0.3% for year end.
http://pressroom.toyota.com/pr/tms/document/December_10_Sales_Chart.pdf
Yet I'm still glad that their market share is going down
You know what? I feel more or less the same way.
I think they deserve to lose sales and market share when they cut costs and start using cheaper materials, examples include the Sienna's glove box and the dryer-lint-over-cardboard headliner on the Highlander. Or bad updates like the Scions have received.
That's fine, and deserved.
It bugs me, though, when people grasp on to sludge or SUA to defame a brand overall. The bias is often obvious. They'll believe any bad news, no matter how far fetched. Sikes, 3-armed grandmas, and today the world's most impaired driver (regardless of the reason for the impairment).
I guess what we can conclude is that people will believe what they want to believe, and not let silly things like the truth get in the way.
Wonder how Lexus did? I haven't seen their sales listed separately.
LOS ANGELES - Seven insurance companies are suing Toyota Motor Corp. in an attempt to recover money paid to cover crashes they blame on sudden acceleration.
The Los Angeles Times reports American Automobile Insurance Co., Fireman's Fund Insurance, National Surety Corp., Ameriprise Insurance, IDS Property Casualty Insurance, Motorists Mutual Insurance and American Hardware Mutual Insurance seek damages in excess of $230,000 from 14 crashes throughout the United States. The lawsuits were filed Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court.
The insurers cite data that blames 725 crashes on sudden acceleration and fault Toyota for failing to equip its cars with an override system that would cause a car to idle if the brake and gas were deployed simultaneously.
http://www.sandiego6.com/news/local/story/Toyota-Sued-by-7-Insurers-for-Sudden-A- cceleration/J8aGGB30VESpRJu_pbUh4w.cspx
SC, IS and GS sales were down. No surprise, all those are near the end of their life cycle. Lexus trucks all did well, though.
Toyota trucks and SUVs also did well, beating the market.
Losses came from Scion (all models), which will not surprise anyone here, and the Yaris. I bet it's improved competition - Fiesta, Mazda2, etc. hurting that model.
The silver lining is that the losses were all low-priced, low-margin vehicles. Their profitable models actually had pretty decent gains.