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Woman drives Prius into stone wall and blames Toyota...

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theflyingpig said:
This is amazing. She has both failed and succeeded at being a woman. Failed because she doesn't know how to lie, and succeeded because she managed to crash a car in some ridiculous manner. She must be fat. There is no other explanation. Everyone knows this.
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That post made my day....but everyone knew that.
 
Skoorb said:
Stories like this and Sikes, both fiction, must be cause for cheer in Toyota conference rooms the world over. It brings into question how many runaway cars REALLY have had that problem.
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I saw a chart the other week showing the age of people who reported "Sudden Unintended Acceleration." Unsurprisingly, the majority of these people were elderly.

How many stories have we heard of an elderly lady flooring the gas when they meant to step on the brakes? A bunch. How many times have they sworn that the car just took of on its own? Almost the same amount.
 
Double Trouble said:
First, I think she's probably just lying. However, the investigation shows that "the accelerator was pressed 100%" and there was no indication of brake compression. If the vehicle is truly fly-by-wire, the pushing on the brake is just a request to the computer, as is pressing the gas pedal. The recorder is just showing what the computer did, not necessarily what the driver did.

I'm not saying it's likely in this case, but for all they know, the driver could have been standing on the brake, but some software glitch made the computer interpret it as the accelerator being pressed. That's something that bothers me about the fly-by-wire stuff and the data recorder being used as evidence, there's an assumption that the computer is correctly doing what the driver requested, and we all know that's not always the case.
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The computer probably records pedal position, not actual braking force being applied to the rotors. IE, if you took the pads and rotors out of the car, and pressed the pedal, the computer would record the pedal position without bearing on how much stopping force is actually happening at the brake calipers themselfs.

I don't believe the brakes are 100% drive by wire. From what I understand about the prius, it uses both the normal hydraulic vacuum assisted system for the mechanical brakes, but a drive by wire for the electric motor "brakes".

For example, if you press lightly on the pedal, you engage the normal brakes slightly, but the computer also provides braking force from the electric motor. The harder you press, the harder the normal brakes will work, even if the car is off.
 
Queasy said:
How many stories have we heard of an elderly lady flooring the gas when they meant to step on the brakes? A bunch. How many times have they sworn that the car just took of on its own? Almost the same amount.
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Seriously, it seems like every other week there's a video on Failblog of someone doing this. Who knows how often it happens without making it onto the internet.
 
Isn't this the captain that got pissed when they basically said this last week, like he got trumped? Apparently he cooled off or is happy that they're letting him release his official statement.

zinfamous said:
Prius has a start button. No key to insert or turn.


Also, the problem seems to be that neutral doesn't respond and car can't be turned off in the legit cases. All those "demonstrating" how to stop your car aren't controlling for the actual situation, as their cars aren't failing in the way that seems to happening with these Priuses.
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Can you link to any of these cases? I have yet to see any (not just the Prius ones) that supposedly everything goes wrong (can't be turned off, put in neutral, brakes don't work, etc). Most of the ones I've seen, there was never even an attempt to shut the car off, mostly because the drivers had no clue how to do that (while the car was in motion). Likewise neutral was not attempted.

I'm not arguing that Toyota's cars have a real problem that needs to be addressed (and seems to have been), but as far as safety goes, to me, its overwhelmingly been due to poor drivers. Granted, yes, that is a panic situation, but most people have no clue at all about what to do. That is the most dangerous aspect.

And knowing is half the battle.
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Maybe Toyota needs to have a driving education course setup for owners of their vehicles?
 
darkswordsman17 said:
Isn't this the captain that got pissed when they basically said this last week, like he got trumped? Apparently he cooled off or is happy that they're letting him release his official statement.



Can you link to any of these cases? I have yet to see any (not just the Prius ones) that supposedly everything goes wrong (can't be turned off, put in neutral, brakes don't work, etc). Most of the ones I've seen, there was never even an attempt to shut the car off, mostly because the drivers had no clue how to do that (while the car was in motion). Likewise neutral was not attempted.

I'm not arguing that Toyota's cars have a real problem that needs to be addressed (and seems to have been), but as far as safety goes, to me, its overwhelmingly been due to poor drivers. Granted, yes, that is a panic situation, but most people have no clue at all about what to do. That is the most dangerous aspect.
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sorry, I've got nothing tangible. 😀 Just from other threads and the earlier news reports (mostly listening to NPR), and the from the mouths of Toyota, that there does exist a real problem with the system failure, and that in such cases the entire (gearbox? I don't know, I suck at cars) fails--or the computer borks and there is no response to neutral or powering down the car. It's a very specific issue. The earlier suggestions of changing floor mats are basically the types of troubleshooting that you'd expect when problems first emerge; whether or not the company is actually addressing them or really trying to hide something.

What I think has become clearer, however, is that many of the cases being reported really are driver error, and have been tossed into the pile with those experiencing legitimate problems. It's looking more and more like a perfect storm scenario for media hype:

1) real problem exists, tragic cases documented
2) massive worldwide company slow to respond
3) media addresses, company still slow, but begins to address issue
4) those desperate for attention/money intentionally wreck their vehicles, or confuse driver error with legit defect. as if lawyers care.....
5) large company investigates, real problems continue at the same rate as before
6) Congress harrumphs--media goes nuts; fraudulent cases skyrocket, real cases continue at same pace
7) mixed results from company investigation--as expected due to increasing rate of fraudulent cases.
8) company apologizes, details murky, litigious society continues to jump after money

.......
 
Hacp said:
Probably 10 dollars in coupons while the laywers get cash.
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there are law firms in delaware that have people on staff who 'own' a share of every publicly traded company in the US just so these sorts of suits can be filed.
 
lol fail.

I did not know they had data recorders in cars now though. Is this just a prius thing, or is this actually a law now? I remember hearing about it as a concept long time ago. I think it is a good idea, it would help cops figure out accidents without relying on people that may lie by blaming the other and what not.
 
You can have unintended acceleration without the car being at fault (i.e. you miss the brake and get the gas instead, panic, and just push it harder).
 
A lot of drivers on the road, can not properly tell the speed on oncoming cars or how fast they are closing on another car. Hence why they wait until the last minute to hit the brakes, sometimes too late or they are merging into traffic and are not moving fast enough to get in safely. As to turning off the ignition, that should work, just do not turn it to the position where you remove the key. If a gas engine car, turn back 1 click, put car into Neutral. As to Drive by Wire throttle, personally I would not be one to trust them. I like to feel the throttle cable response by my foot.

EDR's have been in a lot of cars since the mid 1990's
My 1999 Grand Prix has one. It's main purpose (or so they claim) is to provide information to help make the car safer. It measures decelleration and also g force, vehicle speed, brake applied and indicates if the air bag/bags deployed. It is only supposed to record the last few seconds (about 30) prior to air bag deployment.

But you can be sure of one thing:
Get in a serious wreck with injuries and your insurance co will be looking at that data to see if you were at fault and find a way not to pay your claim or liability. It can also prove that you did all you could and there was nothing you could do to avoid an accident
 
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LordMorpheus said:
You can have unintended acceleration without the car being at fault (i.e. you miss the brake and get the gas instead, panic, and just push it harder).
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This happened to me within months of getting my first car. Thank God there was a huge gap between me and the next car or else I would have been in a major accident with my girlfriend, who was sleeping in the passenger seat. I kept pressing the gas thinking it was the brakes. This was 4 years ago and I never made the same mistake since. Scary shit.
 
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Data recording is apart of the ECU for emissions & performance. Some of the details vary by manufacturer, but acceleration, O2, fuel flow ... a ton of things are recorded to automatically adjust engine performance & turn on *the* codes if necessary. So seeing the last state of the gas pedal is no big deal.

ECU adjusts timing to compensate for off grade gas & ethanol & may take a tank or 2 or less depending again on the make of the car.

Anyway, just posting here because there was another local 1 car "accident" involving a ... PRIUS! Some dufus ran it up over a high curb. High enough that a tow truck & the police had to show up. No injuries.

Maybe ATOT can have a contest to name this ... Prius copycat effect???:\
 
LordMorpheus said:
You can have unintended acceleration without the car being at fault (i.e. you miss the brake and get the gas instead, panic, and just push it harder).
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Happened to me once. I borrowed my brother's Toyota pickup and I was backing into a parking space and I guess I got my 2 big feet mixed up or something while I was looking backwards because I hit the gas and very nearly backed through a brick wall...

I hit the wrong pedal, panicked for about half a second and hit it harder, then recovered and slammed on the brakes just in time.

Never happened before, or since.
 
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