Well, let's look at what's wrong here:
Suddenly she felt the car hydroplaning out of control, and when she glanced at the speedometer she realized the car had shot up to 84 mph. Riner wasn't hydroplaning; quite simply, her Prius had accelerated on its own.
She pushed on the brakes but they were dead. Then just as suddenly as the car had taken off, it shut down. The console lit up with warning lights, leaving Riner fighting a stiff steering wheel as she coasted across four lanes of traffic and down an exit ramp.
1) Hydroplaning feels
vastly different from acceleration.
2) It takes a
long time for a Prius to get from 60 mph to 84 mph. I know. I had one for two weeks and tried. A driver would have to have a serious case of inattention not to notice this.
3) No, the brakes weren't "dead". Brakes don't go "dead". They're hydraulic. While the first bit of pedal travel activates the regen and not the friction brakes, the friction brakes remain operated by a traditional hydraulic system. The power assist may have been gone, but the brakes were absolutely and unequivocally
not "dead". I've driven many, many cars without power brakes. You just have to push harder. This should be basic knowledge required to pass a driver's test.
4) Oh no, a stiff steering wheel. How did we ever survive the
decades before power steering was widely used in tiny little cars like the Prius?
The key to her issue is earlier in the article:
Riner kept the Prius pegged at 60 mph
I'll put money on this woman using the cruise control to do that, which makes the following scenario very likely:
1) Cruise control has locked in a specific throttle setting to keep the car at 60 mph.
2) At least one of the front tires starts to hydroplane (stock tires absolutely suck in the rain).
3) Hydroplaning tire spins up much more rapidly than the cruise control computer can react.
4) Since the speedometer reads from the transmission output shaft, it erroneously reads 84 mph, actual vehicle speed is probably around 58 mph.
5) The car's computer is unable to reconcile the excessive speed reading with the other system statuses and concludes that there is a severe malfunction.
6) Computer shuts down.
The entire case is driver error, not a fault with the vehicle.
Or other statements from the article:
The car wouldn't slow down "no matter how hard I pressed on the brake,"
Sorry, wrong. To test this theory, floor the brake pedal and then floor the gas. See if the car takes off. If you're flooring the brake and the car is still accelerating, then your foot isn't on the brake, it's on the gas.
I love the Riner lady's attempt to blame everyone else:
"I ended up being an hour and 20 minutes late, and only one guy stuck around, so I missed that opportunity," Riner says.
You called the tow truck and car dealer but didn't think to call ahead to your meeting and explain to them what happened? Maybe calling in on a conference bridge and trying to take the meeting remote? Maybe re-scheduling? You know, the things that a responsible businessperson does?
I am not sympathetic to claims of "unintended acceleration". I can drive down the freeway and simultaneously floor both the gas and brake pedals on any car I've ever driven and the car will slow down. Unless the owner has failed to maintain the brakes, it's simply not possible for a car to "accelerate out of control".
ZV
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