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I don't find it any harder to believe than the cop at the Pentagon that believes that God stopped the bullet in the recent attack there. I think that there is clear evidence in these cases that something was amiss with either a Toyota or Lexus vehicle. That should be the goal of Toyota. To find what caused these problems. Not trying to discredit anyone that has a problem.
Toyota has probably always used that method of handling quality issues. When they built quality vehicles in the 1990s, it was less of a problem for them. Now with their horrible DBW systems it is a mess for them and they do not know what to do but fight the messengers of quality issues.
So... do you think the cop is part of the hoax or was he just duped like the rest of us?
ps - another case happened overnight in MA with a RAV that was already recalled and "fixed" by Toyota. but hey, probably it was a hoax, an old lady just wanted to get on TV, huh?
- There wasn't a problem with the brakes. He used his brakes to stop eventually. I think brakes would stop a Prius, even at full throttle.
- On a related note, how come there wasn't significant brake damage after 20 minutes of trying to stop the car (or was there)?
- This guy was fully aware of Toyota recalls, took his car back to dealer. So how he did not know how to put his car into neutral?
-This happened very close to where Saylor accident happened ->sympathetic police officers.
- At the end, he conveniently turned off his car. Remember the other guy that showed his dealer how his engine was revving, no such luck this case.
Brake lights don't mean anything, you can get that by slightly touching the brakes. Now, if this guy is proven right, I will be ready to eat some crow but it just seems to me like this guy is planning to sue Toyota and settle it out of court for some easy money.
On vast majority of cars made in the past five to seven years, the gear selector connection has gone electronic and away from mechanical, thus the problem. Since we are now dealing with electronic control and electronic connections controlled by a computer module, any software issue or for that matter hardware issue renders the gear selector stalk useless when there is a failure.
Yeah, and he should leave it there!
Looks like they will now, however.
Had that happen to me on a 77 Chevy Caprice that was well out of warranty. When in cruise mode, I had a few incidents where car would start accelerating without any input from me. Somehow I figured out it was cruise, flipped the switch on steering wheel stalk and I was OK. Only put up with it a few times. Am handy, so, opened hood, disconnected cruise and never had a problem. Could live without cruise since I did not use that Chevy much more for interstate driving.
Driving 94 mph, in your own car... and, not even attempting to shift into neutral? Total incompetence. This wasn't a loaner car... it was his own vehicle.
Agree that this is total incompetence and he shouldn't be driving any more, nor allowed to drive anymore. He needs to take a cab, I agree with you 100%.
Not only that, but the CHP should ticket him for reckless driving and Cell Phone usage while driving laws being broken as not only is it illegal to make a cell phone call while driving in CA, but it is a stupid thing to do. It was reckless, and he should be cited as such, reckless driving. Yet again, proof the CHP never does a good job at anything.
I am sure he is now suffering from post traumatic runaway Prius syndrome as documented by his phone call. A few million will make him feel better.
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
I'm flying along in my Cessna just reaching the airport and I discover that the gear down indicator will not light....
After numerous tries, cycling the gear, a tower flyby, and another aircraft matching my speed to advise me of gear state, the master circuit pops, will not reset, and now I have no radio/tower communications.
And the "LAW" says I cannot resort to the use of my cell phone...
Sorry, the LAW BE DAMMED.
A true story...mostly, cell phones weren't available at the time.
It appears to me that the HSD ICE/MG control system was stuck in the CC "set/accel" mode.
The cars manoeuvred around two trucks going uphill to a "clear, wide-open road," Neibert said. The officer had only about 15 miles (24 kilometres) to stop the vehicle before a steep downgrade and was considering spike strips to puncture the tires as a last resort. ---That is a smart idea officer, flatten all my tires so we can really blame Toyota for loss of control at 94 miles an hour.
Neibert, a 14-year CHP veteran, worked with Officer Mark Saylor, who was killed in August along with his wife, her brother and the couple's daughter after their Lexus' accelerator became trapped by a wrong-size floor mat on a freeway in nearby La Mesa. The loaner car hit a sport utility vehicle and burst into flames.
Sure smells fishy to me. :confuse:
I think he was probably duped like the driver of that Prius was hoping to do to the rest of us. However, I wouldn't put it past of a CHP officer to be "in" on the hoax. I did see the interview with the CHP officer as well. The driver could have been using his left foot to stomp on the brakes while using the right foot to stomp on the gas the whole time, and the CHP is no better a witness to that fact than I am from my chair.
Let me start by saying I have little to NO respect for the CHP and what they do, and how they do it. I was probably being a bit facetious earlier when saying "it's the LAW you can't use your cell phone while driving."
So while I'm being somewhat comical in saying he should of been ticketed for using his cell phone, I am being serious when I say he should have been ticketed for reckless driving for not having even attempted to put it into neutral or turn the motor off, or put on the emergency brake PRIOR to calling 911. This is why I think the CHP needs a major overhaul; why wasn't he ticketed? It is dangerous and reckless to not act appropriately when faced with a UA situation.
Lastly, let me add that during the interview the guy didn't seem "panicked" to me. He seemed rather calm. During the 911 call/tape, he didn't sound hysterical or really scared to me. Maybe he isn't the best actor after all.
Except in real life the facts are his Prius remained completely undamaged (except for worn out brakes maybe). The CHP officer only maneuvered his vehicle in front of the Prius AFTER it came to a complete stop (in case of spontaneous acceleration with the motor being shut off :P )
So the truth is there was no damage done to the Prius. I think that fact speaks louder than words.
You mean sit down like Dr. Gilbert sat down with Toyota to get their input before running to the media for his 15 minutes of fame with his half-baked "discovery"? That kind of mutual agreement?
Fully "cooked" IMMHO.
Why would Toyota go to the trouble of having redundant sensors in the gas pedal position sensor system but not take advantage of that redundancy capability??
It makes no sense whatsoever.
Even the factory shop/repair manuals indicate that the two sensors are continuously checked, monitored, one against the other, for coherency. If that check is not working, as Dr. Gilbert has seeming proved, something is seriously wrong.
I'm thinking they already knew they had problems. By acknowledging them, via Dr Gilbert's research, it may have led to a recall, which it did, anyway. And, with more to come.
I was referring to the interview with the CHP cop not the driver, actually.
(the cop seemed quite convincing to me, but yeah, theoretically he could be a great actor too, and part of "the conspiracy".)
today on the highway I found myself checking the other lane for Toyotas before changing lanes. "Oh, it's a toyota, better let it go ahead/first, just in case."
Thought I was the only one who thought this case to be fishy. The driver's body language and general demeanor after the ordeal just seemed odd to me. It would be interesting to find out the details of what exactly transpired at the dealership before the SUA episode. Also, the reason why he didn't shift into neutral beats all IMO.
He did not show UA. He showed that he can send identical input from both sensors and ECU does not detect "garbage in" situation. There is no error associated with this problem. So Toyota claim that there is no problem because there is no error logged does not hold water.
I suspect Mr Gilbert went to media becase he was treated like anybody else by Toyota - ignored.
Krzys
Illinois Auto Technology Department. Toyota did say it was not a retaliatory measure. Toyota said they did not think it would be appropriate.
Toyota had history of donating autos to school, plus gave $100,000 in past. At present all we can do it wait to see what happens now regarding Dr. Gilbert.
Dr. Gilbert is employed by the university. Administration may want him to abstain from any further studies. The school which is #1 in nation could suffer as a result.
But we can watch if pressure is being applied. In testimony Dr. gilbert was nice towards Toyota, and hoped they would research further. Gilbert presented study as preliminary and only a starting point. He would be happy to work/talk with Toyota about his report.
Fact is when he discovered something, first call was to Toyota. Then he also placed call to NHTSA and finally Safety Research & Strategies. Sean Kane of Safety Research & Strategies was one who called back immediately. And Sean Kane hired him for $1800, $4000 of needed equipment, $150 per hour - which is a "nothing type" payment. Compare this to exponent - the Toyota hire defense ligitgation firm - Toyota declined at hearing to say what they pay them yearly. But report estimates did come forward & reported- at least $1,000,000 or more per year.
Toyota did finally call him back, but no attempt was made to meet. His suggestions/findings were not taken seriously then by the engineers. And as such Toyota makes claim against Gilbert he said something something entirely different when they spoke. But Toyota had time to work with Gilbert before he testified. Chose not to.
Still have not fully analyzed Toyota Webcast this week. Prius incident couple of hours later sort of took over my research this week.
As for the technical stuff, while it may all be true and personally, I am not all that concerned driving my vehicles, the general public is not all that technical. Unfortunately, it can also make decisions based on emotion rather than all fact. That's why a company has to take all of this into account when handling a crisis. I'm afraid Toyota has been a bit ham-handed in this matter and now I'm paying the price through lost vehicle value and demand. So are other owners and dealers. It's disappointing.
I know...Very, very fishy especially since this is what Toyota and the COP guiding him at the time recommended. Now why would they want to see the car flip?
I think the main point here is the guy's Prius that went out of control. What or how he did what he did doesn't change the fact that his Prius suffered uncontrollable UA, to the speed of 90+ MPH.
And, that's very dangerous, not only to the driver, but to those around him, too.
I have researched most of the reports, interviews since incident. His reasoning for not shutting auto off sooner, shifting into neutral - I could understand considering the roadway of I-8 in San Diego. Was he right? Probably no. Maybe some. But these were decisions he made in this particular emergency.
Driving skills & competency - none of us have any information about his driving skills or his level of competency. What happened during incident can not substantiate this either. I am sure none of you meant to criticize another human being that went through a scarey emergency for doing some things wrong. But maybe he wasn't too?? We weren't there, don't know all the facts, etc.
This incident is valid until proven differently. At present I believe it happened, and if California law proves differently then so be it.
This poor individual went through very scarey incident. I was quite happy to hear he didn't have a heart atack, with his known history of cardiac condition. I believe he needs our compassion, more than criticism right now.
Please try to put yourself in his shoes. Let's make - this happened to you. You knew what to do, but didn't do all correctly. But no one is believing you. You are very angry. Keep saying it did. Others keep saying it didn't. Some saying you are stupid because you didn't do all correctly. And you keep saying it happened, because it did. This was an emergency and I just did what I could at that time. And you ask why aren't people believing me?
Sounds the same as Jumbo Shrimp to me.
Based on a visual inspection, the driver doesn’t think the cause was pedal entrapment, Bardella said. The sedan has been impounded until next week, when Lexus is scheduled to inspect the vehicle."
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/mar/10/runaway-prius-means-more-bad-news- -for-toyota/
Bottom line - Prius went out of control.
This time the police are not willing to release the Prius to Toyota "just yet"
Link:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100310/ap_on_bi_ge/us_runaway_prius_ny
What we all are missing here!!! Toyota, NHTSA, and no one else has taken any vehicles that have had proven witnessed SUA/UA, that were unaltered/not repaired to do intensive engineering studies. And not just Toyota engineers, independent nonbiased auto engineers must be present & conduct test with Toyota at all times. Auto/s is/are kept locked up when not being worked on - where key is kept by independent third party. Auto can not be gotten to unless Toyota and independent engineer present.
This is only a basic good common sense business management type approach. These individuals/CEO, etc. are some of the brightest. Why not???? Why???
Smithy's Lexus is only a show it seems - as vehicle was sold, repaired, etc. Already altered.
We shall see what declared this time. But not everyone one can be declared just "crazy little ole dumb person." Too many complaints, and some have witnesses or passengers.
As far as the media- did seem to appear it was ABC News. From what I could tell this was more set up by Sean Kane. Sean Kane was one who hired Dr. Gilbert. Read Gilbert's study/testimony on government website - hearing Everyone else too.
Actually Gilbert would be considered the least biased. He has more to lose, than he has to gain by testifying. Sure not for the money.
That's complete non-sense and utter rubbish.
First, we do not know whether or not his Prius suffereed UA or was simply a hoax by the driver to pretend that UA was happening.
Furthermore, we are quite certain it was CONTROLLABLE acceleration (certainly not uncontrollable) since the officer was able to guide him into stopping it on his own without any physical assistance.
All saw TV interview/report and news online report ambulance was dispatched due to driver being so distraught This was excellent California Emergency Medical Triage response. His high anxiety level could cause life threatening emergency. Exp, with known cardiac history.
This case reminds me of the Balloon Boy case and that father got 90 days in jail. The same should happen to this lunatic.
As for this incident. When CHP arrived vehicle was still going quite fast. Vehicle was still a runaway Prius. Brakes would not stop auto. It was only when they approached and started climbing hill, with braking still applied, emergency brake pulled that vehicle slowed to 50+- mph. Then driver was able to push ignition button a few times and got it to shut down. CHP interview and reports stated brakes smelled and also afterwards he saw evidence of intense recent braking. Of course only later will tests reveal what brakes show.
I just can't imagine anyone who would purposely want to induce SUA/UA artificially. The risk of injury is too high. Risk of permanent diability too high. Monetary cost to pursue a lawsuit against auto manufacturer is quite high, and is high risk of unfavorable verdict by courts. Family would have to pay all legal costs, unless some attorney is willing to do on comissionon basis. Most families can not afford - $50,000+++. Most attorneys will not take a case on commission.. This particular incident would not be a good viable case for a lawsuit..
This Prius SUA/UA incident is not a good law suit case here in California. He would spend more money paying an attorney to file suit & going to court- just to get Toyota to pay for the costs of repairing his vehicle. Driver had no injury. Not worth it financially.