Toyota Fail: More Media Hype From the MSM.(Funny but True)

So roughly a year ago, reporters went batpoop crazy over possessed Toyotas that accelerate without your consent – smashing into other sedans, running into and over people, or worse: ruining floral mailboxes that look like miniature versions of stately homes.

So where are all these dead people, then?

How long does the hard drive last in your PC? How many microprocessors crash with a power spike?

Cars that do all this stuff by electronics WILL eventually fail. Electronics don't last forever. If your hard drive crashes all you lose are pics and documents. If the PC running your vehicle crashes....

Mechanical things eventually fail as well. I'd wager a random apple ii computer from the 70s is more likely to still be working today than random car built at the same time.

Take your very example, the computer hard drive. That's the most likely component to fail, and it isn't the electronics that fail, it is the mechanical components.

Bottom line is that just because something is mechanical doesn't mean it is more reliable, you want a well engineered end product.

There is nothing special about mechanical that makes it inherently more reliable than electronics, and vice-versa . I’ll give you an automotive example- I prefer manual transmission. Probably for some of the same irrational reasons that you don’t like electronics; I just like to be in direct control of the car. But is it some panacea beyond that? Over the years I have had a couple complete failures. Master cylinder failed and I couldn’t shift. the sifter mechanism physically got stuck in gear. Meanwhile the wife is happily driving along with her auto transmission, and has some pretty nifty paddle shifters in her current car.

Actually I am very knowledgeable in electronics. It is not that I don’t like things electronic. It is that I am smart enough to know that somethings are too important to leave totally in the hands of electronics and software that are subject to design flaw and just plain component failure. I have no problem with the electronics being there. Just put an over ride on it for in case it fails. That is the way it should be when your life could be on the line.

I have over 2 million air miles.

None of it on Airbus :) You can find plenty video online of what happens when their controls crash. The takeoff crash is really spectacular.

I also am seriously considering not being the first on the new Boeing. Not enough fire protection for me. Also I was on a turboprop that caught fire.....nice thing about it, we were able to divert to an airport that was small, and get on the tarmac in < 5 minutes.

A lot better engineering (and maint) and “operators” flying than when driving a car.

Well in a car, the manual override of last resort is turning off the engine. These days, even a physical key is probably just switch wired to a circuit board, just like the push button ignition. It isn't like the 50/60's where the ignition could actually sit beween the battery and ignition coils and control real current (even then there is nothing to say that it couldn't short out or get stuck).

My main point here is that it isn't true that the car couldn't be turned off, and this was some sort of design defect or electronics failure. The driver just didn't know how to turn the car off.

Cars still killed the ignition directly until very recently. I think that some still do. You will never know if holding down the button on those Toyota’s would have killed the ignition or not. You do not know the state of the computer at that time regardless of what this report says. But in any case it takes to long to implement. You can still have all the electronic toys. But the law should say that the ignition should have an instantaneous method of direct killing the ignition.

Now you take a modern industrial machine like a VMC. Those machines are computerized to the max. But then there is that little red button that says “E-STOP”. That means emergency stop. What does that button do. Yes it tells the control to stop the machine, but it does something else. I worked with those machines for some time so I know. In that case the E-Stop button kills the +24 volt power supply to the entire machine. Without that everything stops no matter what the control tries to do. The machine is wired and designed so that it can’t run without it. Someones life may depend on it. It is no different with an automobile. It is required in industry(or used to be) and should likewise be required for an automobile. Explain it away if you like, but it is the way it should be. And for good reason.

Sometimes technology does not move us forward. Sometimes it makes us arrogant and far too dependent on the idea that nothing will go wrong. But sooner or later something will go wrong. Sometimes you need to allow the human brain to take control. You need to leave the human brain with some options to take control in an emergency.

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