Posted on 03/09/2010 8:43:14 AM PST by wrrock
Every single news agency has turned their attention to a car crash in California involving a Toyota Prius. The driver claimed the accelerator got stuck on a California freeway and Patrol offers had to slow them down. It's a story that makes an instant celebrity, and the media loves to hype it.
However:
Anyone that has driven a Prius knows that such a car has not the power to 'JUMP' forward no matter how quick and hard you press the gas pedal. Furthermore, the ability to accelerate in a Prius is so modest, not even the most paranoid driver would be startled by its speeding up.
Secondly, this driver not only had time to call the police after it "ran out of control" he managed to drive the car for another 20 minutes until the police showed up. How out of control could the car have been if he was driving on a busy highway for nearly half an hour?
Finally, contrary to the news report shown below, the CHP officer never helped the Prius slow down. The official CHP report says the officer's car never came in contact with the Prius until the two cars were stopped on the side of the road. So in other words, the driver of the Prius eventually came to a stop all by himself.
Once the car slowed to around 50 mph, Sikes turned off the car's engine and it rolled to a stop with the trooper's car in front of it. The two cars did not touch, police said.
SEE RUNAWAY MEDIA EXAMPLES...
(Excerpt) Read more at cardealerreviews.org ...
This all made me think back to the Atlanta Child serial killer in the early 80s. Once the reports flooded the news of his crimes, others started knocking off their unwanted kids figuring they had cover.
UAW story maybe - bad reproting for sure. this is another version of the OJ,Audi, Explorer or H1N1...all headlines no sense of proportion.
My thought as well. Who is this anonymous driver? An SEIU official? UAW? Ralph Nader?
Shift into neutral, not park.
If some of these people are trying to set up a law suit they will be saddened to learn of the doctrine of contributory negligence .
He was on The Today Show this morning. Not a page out of the Dark Conspiracy Handbook.
For years Toyota has been getting a free ride from the media
by playing the PC card. One salesman even confided to me
that they trained them to play on this while selling, make
the customer think that he is racist NOT to buy a Toyota.
I also think Japanese cars are highly over rated. My last
Chrysler product had over 200K miles and gave nearly no
trouble.
That said, I feel about this media hype the same I would
about some criminal that got off on a technicallity, and
now is facing trumped up charges that they do not deserve.
It’s not fair and it stinks of conspiricy.
Modern auto transmissions are not directly shifted by the shift lever. This has been the case for quite a while. Moving the lever is only a request to a computer for a certain gear. It’s entirely possible for that computer to decide not to give you neutral.
Yes, you shift into neutral (obviously not into park, which the car would not do anyway) and use the brake to get off the road and coast to a stop.
You DO NOT try to turn the engine off until you are off the road. If you do, you will lose the power steering
I agree with you. I was responding specifically to turning off the key or just shifting to park. It can’t be done. Neutral is the way to go.
The black box will catch you, though...
You are right. See my post at #31.
Roger. But I see down thread that shifting into neutral may not be an option in this type of vehicle. Makes it a very different kettle of fish, I am afraid.
No way I’d buy a car where one of my commands can be viewed by the car as a request.
I’ve owned a series of Toyotas over the years. No problem with any. My Tacoma had 264,000 on it when I sold it to a friend, and he’s put over 100,000 on it. I currently have a 2007 FJ Cruiser with 70,000. I had a Plymouth Voyager that would accelerate hard sometimes when you hit the cruise control switch. Tapping the brakes always worked.
The judge did not allow the jury to know the father ran her over (and had the entire family traveling & probably living with him in the truck). The jury awarded the girl $23 million of the trucking firms money. In much of this country, lawyers have replaced the doctrine of "contributory negligence" with the doctrine of "deep pockets."
What if sharks start driving Toyota’s? The we would all be doomed!
On a Prius, you gotta do Ctrl-Alt-Delete, then bring up the Task Manager to kill the process... :0)
Yes, I'm kidding!
The driver said he tried several times to push to button and it finally cut off.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.