Toyota vehicles have resulted in at least 19 deaths since the introduction of the 2002 model year. By comparison, NHTSA says all other automakers combined had 11 fatalities related to sudden acceleration in the same period.
Something may be worth investigating on this. Sounds like an understatement, but heavens, I hope the NHTSA and/or Toyota actually have a proven method to test electronic fly-by-wire.
Is this a similar thought to yours on this disturbance, gagrice?
I mean, if Mitsubishi vehicles started jackrabitting at a certain speed I'd be e-mailing and phoning Mitsu headquarters and probably as many Mitsubishi employees in between that would talk to me about this that I could find.
Toyota is being affected by this problem way above industry average, car nuts.
There's nothing new here except that the LAT is rehashing the same story with the same unfounded speculations.
Six times in the past six years NHTSA has undertaken an exhaustive review of allegations of unintended acceleration on Toyota and Lexus vehicles," Toyota said in a statement earlier this month. "Six times the agency closed the investigation without finding any electronic engine control system malfunction to be the cause of unintended acceleration."
NHTSA officials have consistently said they have not found any electronic defects. "In the high-speed incidents, which are the type of crashes in which death or serious injury is most likely, the only pattern NHTSA has found to explain at least some of them are pedal entrapment by floor mats," a spokeswoman said in a written statement.
There's got to be some data and evidence other than factless 'reports' before I give any credence to electronic issues. There might be something occuring but somebody - somewhere has to find some evidence.
This same mass hysteria followed the Audi unintended acceleration incidents of several years ago. Audi was finally cleared but a lot of damage was done.
a former Boeing employee and turn him in to a car nut.
Something may be worth investigating on this. Sounds like an understatement, but heavens, I hope the NHTSA and/or Toyota actually have a proven method to test electronic fly-by-wire.
Umm...I mean electronic drive-by-wire.
kdhspyder, yes, I agree, no need to fling hysteria indiscriminately around the car industry over this perceived problem. VW is my prime example of a car that has electronic gremlins. I'm not prepared to say Toyota has electronic control unit problems, either from the part manufacturer or in the process of installation by Toyota, regarding the ECU or throttle issues heretofore mentioned on this thread and on other sites. Twould be simpler if it's just a big rotten floor mat snafu by not only the San Diego Lexus dealer but it looks like it's happened in other parts of the U.S. as well.
What I am saying is that someone who can prove that they can logically find the potential problem (perhaps not the NHTSA) of an electronic drive-by-wire nature, needs to find if there are some of these problems occurring in Toyota vehicles. I agree, it would not be fair to just spread lies around regarding this issue.
NHTSA officials have consistently said they have not found any electronic defects. "In the high-speed incidents, which are the type of crashes in which death or serious injury is most likely, the only pattern NHTSA has found to explain at least some of them are pedal entrapment by floor mats," a spokeswoman said in a written statement.
And who is this mysterious spokeswoman? Is she with the NHTSA or Toyota?
Doesn't it concern you that almost twice as many people have been killed in runaway accidents with Toyota vehicles than in ALL other makes combined?
It is quite obvious the NHTSA is totally inept or incapable of investigating these accidents.
NHTSA, the nation's primary agency for auto safety, has conducted a total of eight investigations of unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles since 2003, prompted by defect petitions from motorists and its own examination of complaints. But the agency has tested electronic throttle systems only twice in those probes, its records show.
I find the fact that the NHTSA gave the testing of a failed component, over to Toyota who passed it onto the supplier, totally irresponsible. Then allow the 74 page report to be made confidential sounds very suspicious to me. I think it is time for the "Freedom of Information Act" to be used, to get a complete copy of the report.
Three years ago, the agency asked Toyota to test an electronic throttle component from a 2006 Camry, a task the company delegated to the Japanese supplier that manufactured the part. The supplier exonerated the throttle, and then NHTSA allowed Toyota to keep virtually the entire 74-page report almost entirely confidential. The report, posted on the agency's website, has dozens of redacted pages.
The other test, conducted at a NHTSA laboratory in Massachusetts, found that a Toyota throttle exhibited unusual behavior when researchers applied a magnetic field to the device's sensitive electronics. Engine speed surged by 1,000 revolutions per minute, according to a 2008 report by the agency's Vehicle Research and Test Center.
Even after they come up with a Smart Pedal it will need extensive testing.
it was one of those teacher moments where they have to remind the class of something previously covered. Some like to write them again on the chalkboard.
Some have to put the video projector viewfoil back up and say "See what I'm talking about!"
Sadly, others assign reading again to help drive home their point. To which the class collectively groans out loud. Usually to no avail, either.
Well I won't fight the fact that the NHTSA may not be the sharpest knives in the drawer..they did in fact gloss over the Ford/Firestone fiasco until it was long obvious that there was a problem.
But excluding the NHTSA which is still only a part of a political body called the US Gov't. the lack of data from the insurance companies is what really gets my attention. The insurance companies have no reason to cave into pressure from anyone other than their shareholders. If there's a transitory defect floating around here somewhere I'd be certain that it's the insurance industry that would try to track it down first in order to keep from having to pay any unnecessary claims.
NADA. NOTHING.....
If there is an isolated issue floating in an out of the software maybe due to some magnetic or electronic interference in the vehicle then I'm sure Toyota and the insurance companies are trying to track it down. If it is there, then IMO it's so transitory and so infrequent that it can't be isolated or even identified. It might be like chasing one misquito around the Everglades.
No data, no evidence, nothing.
That stat noted in the article is bogus too. It mentioned 19 from Toyota and 11 from all the rest. Well Toyota is ahead of all the rest of the industry in the implementation of DBW technology. It's bogus because it doesn't give the rate per 1000 or per 10000 or per 1 million vehicles. It could be that 19 divided by 19 million Toyota vehicles with DBW is the same as the rest of the industry with 11 divided by 11 million 'other' vehicles with DBW. IOW both rates are 1 in a million, but the article conveniently leaves out this nuance.
i don't see why you think the auto insurance business should have picked up the problem. 40k+ people are killed in auto accidents every year. the first line of accident investigation is not the insurance company. their investigations are later on. basically, no real investigation of any type took place until the california incident, because at that point, there became a clear cut reason to figure out what really happened.
2024 Ford F-150 STX, 2023 Ford Explorer ST, 91 Mustang GT vert
I'd be certain that it's the insurance industry that would try to track it down first in order to keep from having to pay any unnecessary claims.
The Insurance industry has more reason to shuffle it under the carpet than Toyota. No win in court no big settlement for the insurance company to pay. Replacing a car that is destroyed in a runaway accident is chump change compared to paying $100s of $1000s of dollars in punitive damages to the family of a victim. Do you really think the insurance company that covers the Lexus agency that screwed up is hoping for a big win in court for the families?
I have no idea who has the most DBW systems sold. I do know that the incidence of runaway acceleration with Toyota products went up radically after they started using their electronic accelerator systems. At least according to this graphic.
If that graph does not make you think something is wrong with Toyota DBW, nothing would convince you. It goes beyond reason or logic that floor mats are the major problem. Many loyal Toyota customers question their DBW systems.
Laura Paulson of San Diego said she was unable to stop her surging 2008 Tacoma pickup from accelerating through the back wall of her garage, destroying a bathroom on the other side. Both her dealer and Toyota's national sales division told her the vehicle had no defects, and news that the automaker would now alter the vehicle's pedal did not impress Paulson. "I don't think this is going to solve the problem," she said. "The theory that floor mats cause this just does not add up."
Mary Ann Hoffman of Medford, Ore., won't be taking part in the recall. After three frightening incidents of unintended acceleration, including one with her 15-year-old daughter behind the wheel, she took her 2007 Prius to the dealership.
Last week mechanics and a Toyota field representative told her that they believed the problem lay in the pedal, which was replaced. But Hoffman, who thinks there could be some deeper electronic or mechanical problem with the car, had lost faith in the vehicle and Toyota altogether.
"I think this recall is window dressing," Hoffman said. "I don't think the problem is the pedal or the floor mat or any of that."
On Monday, she traded in her Prius for a 2008 BMW 5-series.
I've never said that the mats are the sole cause of any claims of unintended acceleration. They are the only provable cause at this time.
There are at least 4 other causes that I can think of to explain the jump, two of which I think are very likely and two of which are less provable or identifiable.. 1 Driver error or confusion. This is what the NHTSA has found in most cases 2 Driver misperception. IOW nothing happened 3 Owner mal-intent. Call it copy-catting or piling-on or whatever other term you choose 4 Transient software anomolies.
But seriously now... we're talking barely more than double digit complaints annually out of hundreds of thousands of vehicles sold.
You can hold onto your belief that all the complaints are #4. The ones with actual knowledge of the situation believe that the reasons are mainly #1-3, with #4 being a remote possibility.
Until further data or evidence is provided from a neutral source I'm done with this discussion. It's simply a rehashing of weeks-old non-data. Enjoy yourself. /participation.
•Floor mats are not the only issue, so more models should get smart pedals. Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, says Toyota has had unintended acceleration complaints – including in models where floor mats are not an issue – for a decade now, starting with a Lexus model in Great Britain.
"We do not believe this is just a floor-mat problem," he says, and says Toyota should expand the range of vehicles getting the smart pedal to include all with electronic throttle linkages."
Center for Auto Safety, says Toyota has had unintended acceleration complaints – including in models where floor mats are not an issue – for a decade now, starting with a Lexus model in Great Britain.
Wow so they did manage to sell one Lexus in europe. :P
So how do you explain the sudden increase of SUA after they start using DBW in Toyota cars and trucks? For me to accept your ideas of 1-3 would require me to believe that Toyota drivers after 2002 are less capable than those prior to 2002, when the incidents of SUA were insignificant. There is NO SUCH thing as a neutral source. We all have biases. Some based on beliefs, some on greed. Here is a neutral opinion from a valid source that should be to your liking. I am sure she has a lot more credibility and influence than you or I.
"I suspect the real problem is that there is something wrong with the electronics in the engine," said Joan Claybrook, a former NHTSA chief and a consumer activist.
1) Car and Driver magazine's 10 best cars list does not have any Toyota; while Ford has 3 (including Mazda). 2) Motor Trend magazine named Ford Fusion Car of the Year. 3) Toyota's consumer ratings in the Yahoo Auto continues to drop. The 2010 Camry and Corolla; the 2009 Corolla only gets 3.5 stars (which means 1/3 of the people are not happy with them). The 2009 Camry gets even lower 3 stars (which means 1/2 of the people are not happy). They are lower than most the American car ratings. More interestingly, almost all the posts with high ratings for Toyota got super low "helpful" rating from the readers of these posts while almost all the posts with low ratings for Toyota got very high "helpful" ratings from the readers of these posts. This indicates that the negative view on Toyota of the Yahoo Auto readers is much higher than the people who post reviews.
These are in addition to the old news:
4) Toyota's worldwide sales drop 31% 5) Toyota lost 1.5 billion dollars in half year 6) Toyota lost No. 1 automaker title in 2009 after being there for just 1 year 7) Toyota produced 3.1 million cars but recalled 6 million cars in half year 8) IIHS published the 2010 safe pick list; Ford (including Volvo) has 6 cars on the list; Toyota 0 9) Consumer Reports give Toyota Camry V6 an average rating on reliability; while Ford Fusion gets the highest much better than average rating.
I didn't know there was a requirement about a ratio of positive posts to negative posts for Edmunds. We'll have to go check the GM discussions to be sure people are keeping the proper ratio.
There have been a dozen cover page stories about Toyota by LA Times newspaper and everyone is about the recall and the declining quality. Can you label LA Times Toyota bashing?
That is precisely what Pacific Telephone would say if an employee had any kind of accident. All accidents are avoidable according to the training I received for the 9 years I worked for them. Many people were let go for having accidents that were not really their fault. Same went for Greyhound drivers back then.
Wow, I come back from Thanksgiving break and all h*** has broken loose on this forum.
I see Gary that you're back to posting silly claims like the ones about airbags not firing when the claimants think they should have. Well, the first one was clearly a frontal collision, so no kidding that the side airbags didn't deploy.
I had to respond to that comment about all accidents being avoidable. Ok -- how do you answer this one? I was in NYC over Thanksgiving. The city speed limit is 30 mph and there are traffic lights at nearly every block, with multiple blocks to the mile. There is NO WAY you can be assured someone won't run a red light and slam into your side, because nearly every intersection is blind, blocked by buildings on each corner. The only way to to avoid a side crash would be for you to slow to 10 mph or so, JUST TO BE SURE. Only problem is you might be rear-ended and you WILL be honked at!
I will say something else about NYC -- the pavement is so bad, the drivers so aggressive, the signs and/or lane markers so ambiguous, the double-parking so common, the pedestrians and bicyclists so numerous, etc. that you really cannot be a good driver there, no matter how hard you try. And if you do try, you'll get taken advantage of.
Also, consider the source (Pacific Telephone). Of course they are going to say that all accidents are avoidable! All companies say that, even though common sense tells you that it is simply not true.
Avoidance is the best protection. You drive in a horrible city like NYC and you are risking your life. It is a rare time I will drive in LA to see family. I usually insist they come to San Diego for visits. Or we meet in San Clemente for dinner or an overnight stay.
An example I will never forget here was a suicide jump off an overpass on Interstate 5. The person went through the windshield of a Greyhound bus. The driver was dismissed even though it was no fault of his. They did not want any drivers with an accident on their record.
You drive through the worst part of town at night you could be in trouble. Avoid bad locations is the best way to avoid accidents. It would take more money than anyone I know has to get me behind the wheel in NYC.
I see Gary that you're back to posting silly claims like the ones about airbags not firing
Posted by silly people that buy Toyotas and expect them to work properly. This is a much easier situation to prove. Either the airbag deploys in an accident or it does not. And Toyota has a fair share of claims of airbags failing to deploy in injury accidents. Here is one picture of a new Camry that none of the airbags deployed. Kind of hard to blame it on the driver.
If I had a TPMS, I would have known something was wrong while I was running errands last week and I could have gotten it checked while I was out.
TPMS isn't always all it's cracked up to be. In my Matrix earlier this year, I was driving down the freeway when I heard a loud bang from the right rear tire. I was only about 3 miles from getting off anyway, and since the TPMS light didn't turn on, I figured I would just head to my destination. I pulled off the freeway and into the parking lot of the store I was headed to, and just as an afterthought I went around to glance at the tire. You can imagine my surprise when I found it completely flat.
Had to change it on the spot, the tire was toast and I spent close to $150 to buy one of those crappy Goodyears Toyota seems to put on half of everything they sell, so that it would match the tire on the other side, which only had about 15K miles at the time.
The TPMS light never lit at any time. Another worthless system I paid extra for. Glad that car is gone.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Dang, you went three miles on a flat tire, including partly on the freeway? I guess the bang wasn't a complete blow out or you would have been buying a new rim too.
That reminds me of the time I was on the Trans-Labrador on a long muddy stretch. I had a flat but the road was so bad I didn't realize it for a mile. Lost my hubcap due to the flat.
If the van had been equipped with TPMS, that could have saved me a lot of hassle.
Besides losing the hubcap, the tire was ruined from driving on it for a mile. If an idiot light had gone on I might have saved the tire. As it was I had to buy something "close" for a spare at the lone service station 50 miles from the scene of the flat. That tire was a bit too tall for my van, but I didn't have any choice, and it was a couple hundred miles from the nearest town of any size. (I was willing to risk driving on without a spare, but my wife wasn't).
There is barely any damage to that camry it probably wasn't going fast enough for the airbags to deploy.
Plus it looks like it was hit on a corner and not dead on which would mean the airbag sensors didn't get full right angle force applied to them.
I am sure there are cases where air bags fail to deploy because guess what they are machines and sometimes they don't work right.
I love the first complaint on that page. Nearly 7 years old and there is a problem with the car with 72,000 miles come on electronics don't last forever. I see older cars come in on trade with airbag lights all the time. Toyota is covering nearly a third of the repair and if you beat up the dealership I bet they will cover the other third with a discount.
The damage to that Camry looks about as bad as what happened to my Intrepid, when someone hit-and-ran on it in a restaurant parking lot. It really doesn't take much at all to do that kind of damage.
FWIW, a few years back when I got rear-ended in my pickup, by a 2000 Infiniti I35, it didn't set the airbags off in that car, either. And that car was a mess! And going back further, my uncle hit a deer in his 2003 Corolla. It was a bad enough impact that it disabled the car, as it spilled out all the coolant. Fender was pushed back far enough that it wedged the door shut, and also wedged against the tire. Judging from the amount of damage to both the Corolla and that I35, you'd think the airbags would've deployed. But while that deer did some serious damage to my uncle's Corolla, it probably didn't slow it down much. And when that Infiniti went under my truck, there was a bumper mis-match. As a result of catching my truck with its grille rather than the bumper, it probably softened the blow somewhat.
Just out of curiosity, if you hit a parked car hard enough, would it make the airbags deploy?
My point is that airbags do not always save your hide. I am sure there are a thousand studies saying they are a great life saver. I think they are just another gimmick to make money for dealers. Case in point. The LS400 had the airbag light lit. Went to El Cajon Lexus, the same one that is in the news over using wrong floor mats. They quoted $1200 to repair. I took it to our independent Lexus shop. Cost was $0 as he reset the on board computer when he was doing routine service. Will it work in an accident? Hopefully we do not find out. Life is a gamble.I would rather the money was spent on superior brakes and suspension to avoid an accident. An area the Japanese do not excel in.
There is barely any damage to that camry it probably wasn't going fast enough for the airbags to deploy.
They were going fast enough to be SEVERELY INJURED. I thought that was what airbags were for. To protect the occupants in an accident. That is a new generation Camry. I just do not understand how so many posters can defend these auto makers when they are selling cheap crap that does not work as intended.
I am still waiting for a logical answer to the question of why the SUA incidents shot up after Toyota introduced DBW? Those are the facts as presented by the NHTSA. I guess they finally got around to adding up 2+2 and also want to know.
If that was your point then why didn't you say that anywhere in your post. No where did you say that airbags are not going to protect you in all accidents. Even if I read between the lines between the lines I cannot find that.
Generally second generation airbags will not deploy in situations where the speed differential is below 35 mph. That is not an absolute that is just an about. A customer of ours got rear ended in a S80 when he was at a dead stop and the other car was doing 40ish. All the airbags deployed in his car but. The damage to the S80 was actually minimal from a sheet metal standpoint only a few thousand and no structural damage, don't ask me how they hit was just right and the body shop plus the insurance company cleared the chassis as no damage, to the unibody. The cost of the repair was still over $18,000 dollars cause of all the airbags that went off. The back end of the car lifted up enough that the computer thought a rollover was possible.
A few years ago our Rover GM was rear ended in a LR3 by a highlander doing 45 mpg. The highlander bounced off the LR3 and all its front airbags plus side and side curtain airbags deployed. Car thought it might roll over cause of the bounce to the side. No airbags deployed in the LR3 because it barely moved in the accident. It just had to much inertia at 6,500 lbs for the highlander to move it much.
Total cost of the repair to the LR3 less then 2,000 dollars and most of that was because of the passenger side exhaust system that was tweaked all the way to the block by the impact. Actually cosmetic damage was only a bumper cover.
They quoted you $1,200 because airbag repairs are usually pretty expensive and until you actually start taking things apart you don't know exactly what is wrong with the system.
I recently sold a 2002 Saab that had the airbag light on. Computer said it needed two front sensors at about $800 total. The shop figured 800-1200 in case there were other problems once they got in there. Ended up some wiring was messed up too possibly by mice but only one of the sensors needed to be replaced. Total repair ended up in the $600 range.
They were going fast enough to be SEVERELY INJURED. I thought that was what airbags were for.
Actually airbags are designed to supplement the seat belts. Who knows what really happened in Tiger Woods wrecking his 09 Escalade, but the damage looks substantial and it has been reported the airbags did not go off. I doubt anything was wrong with them.
I had an 01 Nissan Pathfinder that I broadsided another car. I was probably going 30mph when I slammed on my brakes and maybe 20-25 when I hit a Grand Am. It was raining out at the time which you'd think would lesson the blow, but did lessen my braking ability. The airbags did not go off, but I had my seat belt on at the time and the belt definitely saved me from minor injury.
The Grand Am was totaled and my Pathfinder sustained nearly $7k damage. It wasn't drivable as the radiator went was damaged. I asked the repair shop about the airbags and they told me their are like 3 sensors that have to agree to set them off that you have to hit pretty hard for them to do so.
You are correct... air bags are a SUPPLEMENT to the seat belts. If you don't have your seatbelt on, the air bags will not deploy. This is to prevent serious injury or death from being too close to the air bags at time of deployment.
So your answer is to avoid driving in NYC altogether? Nice way to avoid answering my question.
Kind of hard to do when both of my sons live in Brooklyn and Queens, one without a car, the other with a wife and infant daughter. It's a lot easier for my wife and I to visit them then the other way around.
I work in the field of crashworthiness, and just from looking at that Camry photo, it's obvious that the frontal airbags shouldn't have deployed. It's just not that severe of an impact -- the hood is barely damaged and the occupant compartment is untouched, without even a visible crack on the windshield.
And the other posters are correct -- today's frontal airbags typically fire at impact speeds of 15-20 mph into an immovable object, and somewhat higher for a tree or fixed pole. Figure on doubling that speed if you hit a parked car of the same weight as yours. Even then, because most airbags now are "dual stage," they will fire at a lower force at these lower speeds. Some have seat belt use sensors, so they may not fire at low speeds if you are belted, because you won't need the extra protection of the airbag.
If you hit a deer, the side of a car, or dive underneath a truck, all of these may not generate enough deceleration to trigger the airbags. I hit a deer once and the seat belts didn't even lock up -- there was no perceptible slowing down of the car.
Here's the relevant boilerplate from a GM owner's manual:
In any particular crash, no one can say whether an airbag should have inflated simply because of the damage to the vehicle or because of what the repair costs were. For frontal airbags, inflation is determined by what the vehicle hits, the angle of the impact, and how quickly the vehicle slows down. For roof-rail airbags, deployment is determined by the location and severity of the side impact.
On the face of it, those graphs indicate a problem, at least to the layman. I'm not a statistician, but my first question would be are those jumps statistically significant? We're talking, at most, of 130 or so complaints out of several hundred thousand vehicles sold. And as I've repeatedly stated, a complaint in and of itself doesn't mean much. I'd want more data and analysis by trained statisticians, engineers, and crash investigators (as opposed to newspaper reporters and ambulance-chasing lawyers) before I draw any conclusions.
Do not forget that Sean Kane and Clarence Ditlow are primary sources of data for trial lawyers. Their main sources of income come from these same lawyers. Joan Claybrook may be more impartial, but she wasn't called the "Dragon Lady" for nothing when she ran NHTSA.
Take a look at this article (Frontal airbags failed to inflate, newspaper reports, starting on page 6) finding many fallacies in a Kansas City Star October 2007 story. It illustrates that you need to be careful in data analysis and not jump to conclusions.
That is an interesting study on the inaccuracy of studies. If, as the article says, a large portion of fatalities are a result of under ride with larger vehicles, why don't the automakers change their airbag response systems? Or maybe they should not build cars so low that they drag going into many driveways. Top of the list why I don't want another sedan. Several friends live in a subdivision that has the steep lip into the driveways. Designed to funnel water down the street rather than into the garages. Our Lexus will not clear without dragging bottom. And street parking is illegal. Cars should be a minimum of 7 inches clearance. That might save more lives than air bags if you can believe that article.
Airbags won't be of much use if the truck's structure intrudes into the space where your head should be. Cars could be built a little higher in front, but the main way to improve compatibility is to strengthen and lower the heavy truck underride guards. Also pickups and SUVs should have the same bumper heights as cars -- it's interesting that if you look at pickups and SUVs of the 70s, their bumper heights were lower but the vehicles still had as much (if not more) ground clearance than today's counterparts.
That Camry you posted above looks to me like it went into a ditch or an embankment at an angle. Driver probably got jostled around, maybe smacked into the B-pillar or door window.
Yup or maybe hit a curb then a poll or fire hydrant.
You don't want airbags to go off at low speeds as the force of the air bag deploying on the propellant may cause more injury then the crash as long as you are wearing a seat belt.
Even the second Gen and multi-stage airbags can seriously mess up a person's face, neck, arms and hands when they deploy.
A customer of mine totaled her XC90 a few weeks ago and even with all the safety equipment in that vehicle and its significant mass she still broke her foot and her collar bone plus burned the inside of her wrists because of the way she was holding the steering wheel.
From the initial reports the airbags in Tiger's Escalade didn't deploy when he hit that neighbor's tree because he was going less than 33 mph. I didn't know that there was a minimum speed limit but it makes sense. From your expertise you might know whether or not this is the limit built into the new systems such as on the Escalade.
I would expect airbags to deploy in a 33 mph impact into a flat barrier. However, trees and poles are harder to "read" by the sensors, and so there remains the possibility that the airbags would not deploy. This would be even more true if the crash was more of a sideswipe or at least outboard of the frame rails.
I haven't seen photos of the vehicle, so I can only comment based on what you and others have posted. I have heard about the "other woman" factor, though.
The system senses the deceleration is above a certain rate of change. And more than one sensor has to "feel" that deceleration (someone said all three have to do so).
In both the Toyota and the Cadillac it looks like a soft part of the car was hit that crushed in absorbing energy and decelerating the car at a lesser rate than if a solid support for the front bumper were hit more directly. So the "frame" of the car wasn't starting to slow to activate other sensors due to deceleration. I suspect that is the key to other accidents, at least some, where airbags didn't deploy in that the rate of deceleration was mitigated by having hit in a softer part of the car; that means the people-holding portion of the car wasn't getting as much deceleration as it would if the center of the front bumper were to hit another object and decelerate the subframe.
I saw one car in the past that had hit a center divider curb in a driveway between shopping areas. Most people aren't going over 10-15 cutting between parking lots; he had hit the curb with the underside of the motor and tripped the airbags with a solid deceleration rate due to not much "give" in the point of impact.
I've seen cars that hit light poles that went deeply back toward the front wheel and didn't trip the airbags because the deceleration on the people holder wasn't great enough to warrant deployment.
I believe one of the sensors is on the rear window support in one of my cars. So the impact has to be affecting the unibody portion to make it activate to approve deployement. One is on the front radiator area--obviously it's going to react to a front end hit. And I'm not certain but I believe another is in the firewall area under the dash.
With 5 on the list for Subaru, it was a smart move for Toyota to buy into the company. Maybe they can get some pointers on building safer cars. :shades:
I live in Queens, New York City and I know exactly what you mean when you speak about the poor roads and the immature and aggressive drivers here. Actually New York is a testament to how well made my 1990 Honda Civic and 1990 Toyota Celica that my mother and I bought new are. Both have survived 19 and a half years of New York City abuse.
I went to school there and lived/worked there for 35 years...including driving a taxi at nights in the summer as a 2nd job. This was just after they installed the bullet-resistant plastic dividers in the Checker Cabs at the time.
One of the companies I drove for was in The Village where I lived/worked. It was the set model for Devito's show 'Taxi'. The other one was just across the 59th St Bridge in Astoria. I'd live in NYC again in a heartbeat, it's home.
Typical NYer story: After I got married and moved to North Jersey suburbs and began working for the steel company I was sent to Europe for some background training. I flew back into JFK from Paris. With no car I rented one and drove up to the TriBoro to get to the Deegan to the GW and back to Jersey. At the TriBoro I'm in the long Cash lane and a guy in the next lane signals that he wants to come over from the Exact Change lane into the Cash lane. I let him in.
When I get to the booth the fare collector says..'Go on ahead...the guy ahead of you paid for you both.' Welcome home to NYC. :shades:
>'Go on ahead...the guy ahead of you paid for you both.'
That's a good story for an area where I wouldn't have expected it.
I've had some fun paying for people who'll check out after me who are pleasant grabbing coffee at the local quick market. These are people who say hello every time both of us are in there getting a morning fix of caffeine and cappucino.
So last year, when Toyota had many cars on the list, what did you say? This has been discussed before. When they test more cars, and when they do the tests again in future years, I can't wait for the comments. Wait a minute, you don't need air bags, or safe cars, because all accidents are preventable, right?
Please see Brand Problems Swept under rug starting with post 1176 - it explains the whole safety list thing.
Hey, I'm sure that Tiger's Escalade's air bags should have gone off. Sounds like a poor design from GM. I think we should get the attorneys involved, and start a thread about this GM cover-up, poor design, scandal!! (Just kidding, but you can imagine what would have been said by some if he was driving a Toyota!)
Despite the stereotype, I've found New Yorkers on the whole to be pleasant and helpful in a face-to-face setting. Small example: on this last visit, my son was interested in buying new houseplants to replace the ones killed by spider mites. The nursery we entered sits right on busy Flatbush Avenue, the main street of Brooklyn. Both men inside greeted us and said to ask for help if we needed it. They thanked us as we left without making a purchase.
Comments
Toyota vehicles have resulted in at least 19 deaths since the introduction of the 2002 model year. By comparison, NHTSA says all other automakers combined had 11 fatalities related to sudden acceleration in the same period.
Something may be worth investigating on this. Sounds like an understatement, but heavens, I hope the NHTSA and/or Toyota actually have a proven method to test electronic fly-by-wire.
Is this a similar thought to yours on this disturbance, gagrice?
I mean, if Mitsubishi vehicles started jackrabitting at a certain speed I'd be e-mailing and phoning Mitsu headquarters and probably as many Mitsubishi employees in between that would talk to me about this that I could find.
Toyota is being affected by this problem way above industry average, car nuts.
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
Six times in the past six years NHTSA has undertaken an exhaustive review of allegations of unintended acceleration on Toyota and Lexus vehicles," Toyota said in a statement earlier this month. "Six times the agency closed the investigation without finding any electronic engine control system malfunction to be the cause of unintended acceleration."
NHTSA officials have consistently said they have not found any electronic defects. "In the high-speed incidents, which are the type of crashes in which death or serious injury is most likely, the only pattern NHTSA has found to explain at least some of them are pedal entrapment by floor mats," a spokeswoman said in a written statement.
There's got to be some data and evidence other than factless 'reports' before I give any credence to electronic issues. There might be something occuring but somebody - somewhere has to find some evidence.
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
Something may be worth investigating on this. Sounds like an understatement, but heavens, I hope the NHTSA and/or Toyota actually have a proven method to test electronic fly-by-wire.
Umm...I mean electronic drive-by-wire.
kdhspyder, yes, I agree, no need to fling hysteria indiscriminately around the car industry over this perceived problem. VW is my prime example of a car that has electronic gremlins. I'm not prepared to say Toyota has electronic control unit problems, either from the part manufacturer or in the process of installation by Toyota, regarding the ECU or throttle issues heretofore mentioned on this thread and on other sites. Twould be simpler if it's just a big rotten floor mat snafu by not only the San Diego Lexus dealer but it looks like it's happened in other parts of the U.S. as well.
What I am saying is that someone who can prove that they can logically find the potential problem (perhaps not the NHTSA) of an electronic drive-by-wire nature, needs to find if there are some of these problems occurring in Toyota vehicles. I agree, it would not be fair to just spread lies around regarding this issue.
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
NHTSA officials have consistently said they have not found any electronic defects. "In the high-speed incidents, which are the type of crashes in which death or serious injury is most likely, the only pattern NHTSA has found to explain at least some of them are pedal entrapment by floor mats," a spokeswoman said in a written statement.
And who is this mysterious spokeswoman? Is she with the NHTSA or Toyota?
Doesn't it concern you that almost twice as many people have been killed in runaway accidents with Toyota vehicles than in ALL other makes combined?
It is quite obvious the NHTSA is totally inept or incapable of investigating these accidents.
NHTSA, the nation's primary agency for auto safety, has conducted a total of eight investigations of unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles since 2003, prompted by defect petitions from motorists and its own examination of complaints. But the agency has tested electronic throttle systems only twice in those probes, its records show.
I find the fact that the NHTSA gave the testing of a failed component, over to Toyota who passed it onto the supplier, totally irresponsible. Then allow the 74 page report to be made confidential sounds very suspicious to me. I think it is time for the "Freedom of Information Act" to be used, to get a complete copy of the report.
Three years ago, the agency asked Toyota to test an electronic throttle component from a 2006 Camry, a task the company delegated to the Japanese supplier that manufactured the part. The supplier exonerated the throttle, and then NHTSA allowed Toyota to keep virtually the entire 74-page report almost entirely confidential. The report, posted on the agency's website, has dozens of redacted pages.
The other test, conducted at a NHTSA laboratory in Massachusetts, found that a Toyota throttle exhibited unusual behavior when researchers applied a magnetic field to the device's sensitive electronics. Engine speed surged by 1,000 revolutions per minute, according to a 2008 report by the agency's Vehicle Research and Test Center.
Even after they come up with a Smart Pedal it will need extensive testing.
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
Some have to put the video projector viewfoil back up and say "See what I'm talking about!"
Sadly, others assign reading again to help drive home their point. To which the class collectively groans out loud. Usually to no avail, either.
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
But excluding the NHTSA which is still only a part of a political body called the US Gov't. the lack of data from the insurance companies is what really gets my attention. The insurance companies have no reason to cave into pressure from anyone other than their shareholders. If there's a transitory defect floating around here somewhere I'd be certain that it's the insurance industry that would try to track it down first in order to keep from having to pay any unnecessary claims.
NADA. NOTHING.....
If there is an isolated issue floating in an out of the software maybe due to some magnetic or electronic interference in the vehicle then I'm sure Toyota and the insurance companies are trying to track it down. If it is there, then IMO it's so transitory and so infrequent that it can't be isolated or even identified. It might be like chasing one misquito around the Everglades.
No data, no evidence, nothing.
That stat noted in the article is bogus too. It mentioned 19 from Toyota and 11 from all the rest. Well Toyota is ahead of all the rest of the industry in the implementation of DBW technology. It's bogus because it doesn't give the rate per 1000 or per 10000 or per 1 million vehicles. It could be that 19 divided by 19 million Toyota vehicles with DBW is the same as the rest of the industry with 11 divided by 11 million 'other' vehicles with DBW. IOW both rates are 1 in a million, but the article conveniently leaves out this nuance.
40k+ people are killed in auto accidents every year.
the first line of accident investigation is not the insurance company. their investigations are later on.
basically, no real investigation of any type took place until the california incident, because at that point, there became a clear cut reason to figure out what really happened.
The Insurance industry has more reason to shuffle it under the carpet than Toyota. No win in court no big settlement for the insurance company to pay. Replacing a car that is destroyed in a runaway accident is chump change compared to paying $100s of $1000s of dollars in punitive damages to the family of a victim. Do you really think the insurance company that covers the Lexus agency that screwed up is hoping for a big win in court for the families?
I have no idea who has the most DBW systems sold. I do know that the incidence of runaway acceleration with Toyota products went up radically after they started using their electronic accelerator systems. At least according to this graphic.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-112909-fi-2toyota_throttle-g,0,6259535.graphi- c
If that graph does not make you think something is wrong with Toyota DBW, nothing would convince you. It goes beyond reason or logic that floor mats are the major problem. Many loyal Toyota customers question their DBW systems.
Laura Paulson of San Diego said she was unable to stop her surging 2008 Tacoma pickup from accelerating through the back wall of her garage, destroying a bathroom on the other side. Both her dealer and Toyota's national sales division told her the vehicle had no defects, and news that the automaker would now alter the vehicle's pedal did not impress Paulson. "I don't think this is going to solve the problem," she said. "The theory that floor mats cause this just does not add up."
Mary Ann Hoffman of Medford, Ore., won't be taking part in the recall. After three frightening incidents of unintended acceleration, including one with her 15-year-old daughter behind the wheel, she took her 2007 Prius to the dealership.
Last week mechanics and a Toyota field representative told her that they believed the problem lay in the pedal, which was replaced. But Hoffman, who thinks there could be some deeper electronic or mechanical problem with the car, had lost faith in the vehicle and Toyota altogether.
"I think this recall is window dressing," Hoffman said. "I don't think the problem is the pedal or the floor mat or any of that."
On Monday, she traded in her Prius for a 2008 BMW 5-series.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-toyota-recall26-2009nov26,0,3295310.story?- page=2
There are at least 4 other causes that I can think of to explain the jump, two of which I think are very likely and two of which are less provable or identifiable..
1 Driver error or confusion. This is what the NHTSA has found in most cases
2 Driver misperception. IOW nothing happened
3 Owner mal-intent. Call it copy-catting or piling-on or whatever other term you choose
4 Transient software anomolies.
But seriously now... we're talking barely more than double digit complaints annually out of hundreds of thousands of vehicles sold.
You can hold onto your belief that all the complaints are #4. The ones with actual knowledge of the situation believe that the reasons are mainly #1-3, with #4 being a remote possibility.
Until further data or evidence is provided from a neutral source I'm done with this discussion. It's simply a rehashing of weeks-old non-data. Enjoy yourself. /participation.
•Floor mats are not the only issue, so more models should get smart pedals. Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, says Toyota has had unintended acceleration complaints – including in models where floor mats are not an issue – for a decade now, starting with a Lexus model in Great Britain.
"We do not believe this is just a floor-mat problem," he says, and says Toyota should expand the range of vehicles getting the smart pedal to include all with electronic throttle linkages."
Something odd is going on again at Toyota.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Wow so they did manage to sell one Lexus in europe. :P
"I suspect the real problem is that there is something wrong with the electronics in the engine," said Joan Claybrook, a former NHTSA chief and a consumer activist.
1) Car and Driver magazine's 10 best cars list does not have any Toyota; while Ford has 3 (including Mazda).
2) Motor Trend magazine named Ford Fusion Car of the Year.
3) Toyota's consumer ratings in the Yahoo Auto continues to drop. The 2010 Camry and Corolla; the 2009 Corolla only gets 3.5 stars (which means 1/3 of the people are not happy with them). The 2009 Camry gets even lower 3 stars (which means 1/2 of the people are not happy). They are lower than most the American car ratings. More interestingly, almost all the posts with high ratings for Toyota got super low "helpful" rating from the readers of these posts while almost all the posts with low ratings for Toyota got very high "helpful" ratings from the readers of these posts. This indicates that the negative view on Toyota of the Yahoo Auto readers is much higher than the people who post reviews.
These are in addition to the old news:
4) Toyota's worldwide sales drop 31%
5) Toyota lost 1.5 billion dollars in half year
6) Toyota lost No. 1 automaker title in 2009 after being there for just 1 year
7) Toyota produced 3.1 million cars but recalled 6 million cars in half year
8) IIHS published the 2010 safe pick list; Ford (including Volvo) has 6 cars on the list; Toyota 0
9) Consumer Reports give Toyota Camry V6 an average rating on reliability; while Ford Fusion gets the highest much better than average rating.
Really? You joined the forums just one month ago and every post you have made is bashing Toyota.
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
I didn't know there was a requirement about a ratio of positive posts to negative posts for Edmunds. We'll have to go check the GM discussions to be sure people are keeping the proper ratio.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
And the topic isn't each other.
Wow, I come back from Thanksgiving break and all h*** has broken loose on this forum.
I see Gary that you're back to posting silly claims like the ones about airbags not firing when the claimants think they should have. Well, the first one was clearly a frontal collision, so no kidding that the side airbags didn't deploy.
I had to respond to that comment about all accidents being avoidable. Ok -- how do you answer this one? I was in NYC over Thanksgiving. The city speed limit is 30 mph and there are traffic lights at nearly every block, with multiple blocks to the mile. There is NO WAY you can be assured someone won't run a red light and slam into your side, because nearly every intersection is blind, blocked by buildings on each corner. The only way to to avoid a side crash would be for you to slow to 10 mph or so, JUST TO BE SURE. Only problem is you might be rear-ended and you WILL be honked at!
I will say something else about NYC -- the pavement is so bad, the drivers so aggressive, the signs and/or lane markers so ambiguous, the double-parking so common, the pedestrians and bicyclists so numerous, etc. that you really cannot be a good driver there, no matter how hard you try. And if you do try, you'll get taken advantage of.
Avoidance is the best protection. You drive in a horrible city like NYC and you are risking your life. It is a rare time I will drive in LA to see family. I usually insist they come to San Diego for visits. Or we meet in San Clemente for dinner or an overnight stay.
An example I will never forget here was a suicide jump off an overpass on Interstate 5. The person went through the windshield of a Greyhound bus. The driver was dismissed even though it was no fault of his. They did not want any drivers with an accident on their record.
You drive through the worst part of town at night you could be in trouble. Avoid bad locations is the best way to avoid accidents. It would take more money than anyone I know has to get me behind the wheel in NYC.
I see Gary that you're back to posting silly claims like the ones about airbags not firing
Posted by silly people that buy Toyotas and expect them to work properly. This is a much easier situation to prove. Either the airbag deploys in an accident or it does not. And Toyota has a fair share of claims of airbags failing to deploy in injury accidents. Here is one picture of a new Camry that none of the airbags deployed. Kind of hard to blame it on the driver.
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/automotive/toyota_airbags.html
TPMS isn't always all it's cracked up to be. In my Matrix earlier this year, I was driving down the freeway when I heard a loud bang from the right rear tire. I was only about 3 miles from getting off anyway, and since the TPMS light didn't turn on, I figured I would just head to my destination. I pulled off the freeway and into the parking lot of the store I was headed to, and just as an afterthought I went around to glance at the tire. You can imagine my surprise when I found it completely flat.
Had to change it on the spot, the tire was toast and I spent close to $150 to buy one of those crappy Goodyears Toyota seems to put on half of everything they sell, so that it would match the tire on the other side, which only had about 15K miles at the time.
The TPMS light never lit at any time. Another worthless system I paid extra for. Glad that car is gone.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
That reminds me of the time I was on the Trans-Labrador on a long muddy stretch. I had a flat but the road was so bad I didn't realize it for a mile. Lost my hubcap due to the flat.
If the van had been equipped with TPMS, that could have saved me a lot of hassle.
Besides losing the hubcap, the tire was ruined from driving on it for a mile. If an idiot light had gone on I might have saved the tire. As it was I had to buy something "close" for a spare at the lone service station 50 miles from the scene of the flat. That tire was a bit too tall for my van, but I didn't have any choice, and it was a couple hundred miles from the nearest town of any size. (I was willing to risk driving on without a spare, but my wife wasn't).
Plus it looks like it was hit on a corner and not dead on which would mean the airbag sensors didn't get full right angle force applied to them.
I am sure there are cases where air bags fail to deploy because guess what they are machines and sometimes they don't work right.
I love the first complaint on that page. Nearly 7 years old and there is a problem with the car with 72,000 miles come on electronics don't last forever. I see older cars come in on trade with airbag lights all the time. Toyota is covering nearly a third of the repair and if you beat up the dealership I bet they will cover the other third with a discount.
FWIW, a few years back when I got rear-ended in my pickup, by a 2000 Infiniti I35, it didn't set the airbags off in that car, either. And that car was a mess! And going back further, my uncle hit a deer in his 2003 Corolla. It was a bad enough impact that it disabled the car, as it spilled out all the coolant. Fender was pushed back far enough that it wedged the door shut, and also wedged against the tire. Judging from the amount of damage to both the Corolla and that I35, you'd think the airbags would've deployed. But while that deer did some serious damage to my uncle's Corolla, it probably didn't slow it down much. And when that Infiniti went under my truck, there was a bumper mis-match. As a result of catching my truck with its grille rather than the bumper, it probably softened the blow somewhat.
Just out of curiosity, if you hit a parked car hard enough, would it make the airbags deploy?
They were going fast enough to be SEVERELY INJURED. I thought that was what airbags were for. To protect the occupants in an accident. That is a new generation Camry. I just do not understand how so many posters can defend these auto makers when they are selling cheap crap that does not work as intended.
I am still waiting for a logical answer to the question of why the SUA incidents shot up after Toyota introduced DBW? Those are the facts as presented by the NHTSA. I guess they finally got around to adding up 2+2 and also want to know.
Generally second generation airbags will not deploy in situations where the speed differential is below 35 mph. That is not an absolute that is just an about. A customer of ours got rear ended in a S80 when he was at a dead stop and the other car was doing 40ish. All the airbags deployed in his car but. The damage to the S80 was actually minimal from a sheet metal standpoint only a few thousand and no structural damage, don't ask me how they hit was just right and the body shop plus the insurance company cleared the chassis as no damage, to the unibody. The cost of the repair was still over $18,000 dollars cause of all the airbags that went off. The back end of the car lifted up enough that the computer thought a rollover was possible.
A few years ago our Rover GM was rear ended in a LR3 by a highlander doing 45 mpg. The highlander bounced off the LR3 and all its front airbags plus side and side curtain airbags deployed. Car thought it might roll over cause of the bounce to the side. No airbags deployed in the LR3 because it barely moved in the accident. It just had to much inertia at 6,500 lbs for the highlander to move it much.
Total cost of the repair to the LR3 less then 2,000 dollars and most of that was because of the passenger side exhaust system that was tweaked all the way to the block by the impact. Actually cosmetic damage was only a bumper cover.
They quoted you $1,200 because airbag repairs are usually pretty expensive and until you actually start taking things apart you don't know exactly what is wrong with the system.
I recently sold a 2002 Saab that had the airbag light on. Computer said it needed two front sensors at about $800 total. The shop figured 800-1200 in case there were other problems once they got in there. Ended up some wiring was messed up too possibly by mice but only one of the sensors needed to be replaced. Total repair ended up in the $600 range.
Actually airbags are designed to supplement the seat belts. Who knows what really happened in Tiger Woods wrecking his 09 Escalade, but the damage looks substantial and it has been reported the airbags did not go off. I doubt anything was wrong with them.
I had an 01 Nissan Pathfinder that I broadsided another car. I was probably going 30mph when I slammed on my brakes and maybe 20-25 when I hit a Grand Am. It was raining out at the time which you'd think would lesson the blow, but did lessen my braking ability. The airbags did not go off, but I had my seat belt on at the time and the belt definitely saved me from minor injury.
The Grand Am was totaled and my Pathfinder sustained nearly $7k damage. It wasn't drivable as the radiator went was damaged. I asked the repair shop about the airbags and they told me their are like 3 sensors that have to agree to set them off that you have to hit pretty hard for them to do so.
Kind of hard to do when both of my sons live in Brooklyn and Queens, one without a car, the other with a wife and infant daughter. It's a lot easier for my wife and I to visit them then the other way around.
I work in the field of crashworthiness, and just from looking at that Camry photo, it's obvious that the frontal airbags shouldn't have deployed. It's just not that severe of an impact -- the hood is barely damaged and the occupant compartment is untouched, without even a visible crack on the windshield.
And the other posters are correct -- today's frontal airbags typically fire at impact speeds of 15-20 mph into an immovable object, and somewhat higher for a tree or fixed pole. Figure on doubling that speed if you hit a parked car of the same weight as yours. Even then, because most airbags now are "dual stage," they will fire at a lower force at these lower speeds. Some have seat belt use sensors, so they may not fire at low speeds if you are belted, because you won't need the extra protection of the airbag.
If you hit a deer, the side of a car, or dive underneath a truck, all of these may not generate enough deceleration to trigger the airbags. I hit a deer once and the seat belts didn't even lock up -- there was no perceptible slowing down of the car.
Here's the relevant boilerplate from a GM owner's manual:
In any particular crash, no one can say whether an airbag should have inflated simply because of the damage to the vehicle or because of what the repair costs were. For frontal airbags, inflation is determined by what the vehicle hits, the angle of the impact, and how quickly the vehicle slows down. For roof-rail airbags, deployment is determined by the location and severity of the side impact.
Do not forget that Sean Kane and Clarence Ditlow are primary sources of data for trial lawyers. Their main sources of income come from these same lawyers. Joan Claybrook may be more impartial, but she wasn't called the "Dragon Lady" for nothing when she ran NHTSA.
You don't want airbags to go off at low speeds as the force of the air bag deploying on the propellant may cause more injury then the crash as long as you are wearing a seat belt.
Even the second Gen and multi-stage airbags can seriously mess up a person's face, neck, arms and hands when they deploy.
A customer of mine totaled her XC90 a few weeks ago and even with all the safety equipment in that vehicle and its significant mass she still broke her foot and her collar bone plus burned the inside of her wrists because of the way she was holding the steering wheel.
I haven't seen photos of the vehicle, so I can only comment based on what you and others have posted. I have heard about the "other woman" factor, though.
Nice try.
By your standard Toyota has 5 on IIHS' list:
http://www.iihs.org/ratings/
In both the Toyota and the Cadillac it looks like a soft part of the car was hit that crushed in absorbing energy and decelerating the car at a lesser rate than if a solid support for the front bumper were hit more directly. So the "frame" of the car wasn't starting to slow to activate other sensors due to deceleration. I suspect that is the key to other accidents, at least some, where airbags didn't deploy in that the rate of deceleration was mitigated by having hit in a softer part of the car; that means the people-holding portion of the car wasn't getting as much deceleration as it would if the center of the front bumper were to hit another object and decelerate the subframe.
I saw one car in the past that had hit a center divider curb in a driveway between shopping areas. Most people aren't going over 10-15 cutting between parking lots; he had hit the curb with the underside of the motor and tripped the airbags with a solid deceleration rate due to not much "give" in the point of impact.
I've seen cars that hit light poles that went deeply back toward the front wheel and didn't trip the airbags because the deceleration on the people holder wasn't great enough to warrant deployment.
I believe one of the sensors is on the rear window support in one of my cars. So the impact has to be affecting the unibody portion to make it activate to approve deployement. One is on the front radiator area--obviously it's going to react to a front end hit. And I'm not certain but I believe another is in the firewall area under the dash.
Woods car courtesy TMZ">link title
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
With 5 on the list for Subaru, it was a smart move for Toyota to buy into the company. Maybe they can get some pointers on building safer cars. :shades:
One of the companies I drove for was in The Village where I lived/worked. It was the set model for Devito's show 'Taxi'. The other one was just across the 59th St Bridge in Astoria. I'd live in NYC again in a heartbeat, it's home.
Typical NYer story: After I got married and moved to North Jersey suburbs and began working for the steel company I was sent to Europe for some background training. I flew back into JFK from Paris. With no car I rented one and drove up to the TriBoro to get to the Deegan to the GW and back to Jersey. At the TriBoro I'm in the long Cash lane and a guy in the next lane signals that he wants to come over from the Exact Change lane into the Cash lane. I let him in.
When I get to the booth the fare collector says..'Go on ahead...the guy ahead of you paid for you both.' Welcome home to NYC. :shades:
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
Cool.
>'Go on ahead...the guy ahead of you paid for you both.'
That's a good story for an area where I wouldn't have expected it.
I've had some fun paying for people who'll check out after me who are pleasant grabbing coffee at the local quick market. These are people who say hello every time both of us are in there getting a morning fix of caffeine and cappucino.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Please see Brand Problems Swept under rug starting with post 1176 - it explains the whole safety list thing.
Hey, I'm sure that Tiger's Escalade's air bags should have gone off. Sounds like a poor design from GM. I think we should get the attorneys involved, and start a thread about this GM cover-up, poor design, scandal!! (Just kidding, but you can imagine what would have been said by some if he was driving a Toyota!)