Free Republic

Today Oct 2nd, my wife and I went to Seattle to see my mom for her 95th birthday. After a few miles as we drove to the ferry, I noticed something, actually the lack therof. There were no Obama stickers anywhere, not even on Toyota Priuses ! I became obsessed in finding how long this would last, so I looked at every single car we passed. I even looked in the rearview mirror when possible, and at parked cars on the roadside. I did not see a single one, even when we got to the ferry parking lot 20 miles...

You hardly need a car alarm if you drive a Prius. That's the conclusion of a new vehicle theft study from the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI). According to the report, thieves are after "chrome, horsepower, and HEMIs," but not "sedate family cars and fuel-sippers." HLDI's report calculates the vehicles with the highest insurance claims for theft by taking into account the rate at which insurance claims are filed as well as the size of the payments. Unsurprisingly, the rap-song-worthy Escalade is the most stolen car--one out of every 100 are swiped by thieves. Other popular targets include the Hummer,...

Alex Severinsky, a Soviet emigrant who began his career developing antitank-warfare instrumentation, patented a system for powering gas-electric hybrids in 1994. Toyota used his system for the Prius without permission or payment. Until this week. Alex Severinsky recieved his master's degree in electrical engineering from the Kharkov College of Radioelectronics, in Kharkov, Ukraine, in 1967. Eight years later, he earned his Ph.D. in the same discipline from Moscow's Institute for Precision Measurements in Radioelectronics and Physics. Three years after that, he emigrated to the United States as a refugee. On September 6, 1994, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued...

For three days, James Sikes held America's highest honor: victim. The nation had been transfixed by his almost half-hour-long 94-mph horror ride in his runaway Toyota Prius. He burned his brakes right down to the metal, unable to even slow the vehicle. Only his prescience in calling 911, followed by a highway patrol officer providing assistance, saved his life. Then my article "Toyota Hybrid Horror Hoax" at Forbes.com brought it crashing down. But lest you get false impressions from that title, the real hoaxter wasn't Jim Sikes, but the media. Red flags about his story were popping up from the...

For three days, James Sikes held America's highest honor: victim. The nation had been transfixed by his almost half-hour-long 94-mph horror ride in his runaway Toyota Prius. He burned his brakes right down to the metal, unable to even slow the vehicle. Only his prescience in calling 911, followed by a highway patrol officer providing assistance, saved his life. Then my article "Toyota Hybrid Horror Hoax" at Forbes.com brought it crashing down. But lest you get false impressions from that title, the real hoaxter wasn't Jim Sikes, but the media. Red flags about his story were popping up from the...

The appropriate word here would probably be "busted." "My Prius went wild!" guy Jim Sikes apparently didn't realize his car carried the equivalent of an airliner's Black Box. Ah, well.  Live and learn, Jim.  In the Big House.

The carmaker says it failed to reproduce the stuck accelerator that a motorist says took him on a wild ride near San Diego last week.The automaker said its two days of testing failed to reproduce James Sikes' reported stuck accelerator that the driver said led to a 20-minute ride on a San Diego area freeway before he could get the car stopped with the help of the California Highway Patrol. Toyota said its investigators found the accelerator pedal to be "working normally," with no interference caused by floor mats. No diagnostic trouble codes were found by the testers in the...

Technicians with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Toyota Motor Corp. could not duplicate the unintended acceleration reported by a Prius driver in California last week, according to a published report. The lawyer of the motorists involved in the run-away-vehicle incident received a congressional memo informing him of the finding, the Associated Press reported Sunday. The memo also questioned his client's version of events. The memo was based on the observations of a congressional staffer who attended a two-day inspection last week at a Toyota dealership in suburban San Diego. A Toyota official who attended the inspection was cited...

Draft memo obtained by CNN: "It's feasibly not possible both electronically and mechanically that the gas pedal was stuck and that Mr. Sikes could have been slamming on the brake pedal at the same time and not have the car slow down" (Prius story debunked, 2 videos)

Exploring an overblown media frenzy. "On the very day Toyota was making a high-profile defense of its cars, one of them was speeding out of control," said CBS News--and a vast number of other media outlets worldwide. The driver of a 2008 Toyota Prius, James Sikes, called 911 to say his accelerator was stuck, he was zooming faster than 90 miles per hour and absolutely couldn't slow down. It got far more dramatic, though. The California Highway Patrol responded and "To get the runaway car to stop, they actually had to put their patrol car in front of the Prius...

Independent investigative journalist, Michael Fumento, has down the yeoman's work on what appears to be the latest "Balloom Boy" hoax, Jim Sike's runaway Prius escapade on San Diego's Interstate 8. Just as a nation watched a solitary balloon supposedly containing a young boy, made all the more dramatic when mesmerized, by hushed voices by talking heads expressing their horror, again the media dominated the airwaves with an runaway Prius with 61 year old Realtor®, Jim Sikes, at the wheel and on his cell with 911 responders. Still, there were a few detecting a distinct aroma about the affair. 911 repeatedly...

I’ve been driving Toyota Priuses since 2001. As a junior defense lawyer in the mid-90s, I litigated a number of bogus sudden acceleration cases that were brought against General Motors. So the recent kerfuffle over alleged mysterious electronic problems with the Prius and other Toyotas has certainly caught my attention beyond just throwing my floor mat in the trunk. (snip) The Los Angeles Times recently did a story detailing all of the NHTSA reports of Toyota “sudden acceleration” fatalities, and, though the Times did not mention it, the ages of the drivers involved were striking. In the 24 cases where...

The man who became the face of the Toyota gas pedal scandal this week has a troubled financial past that is leading some to question whether he was wholly truthful in his story. On Monday, James Sikes called 911 to report that he was behind the wheel of an out-of-control Toyota Prius going 94 mph on a freeway near San Diego. Twenty-three minutes later, a California Highway Patrol officer helped guide him to a stop, a rescue that was captured on videotape. Since then, it's been learned that: — Sikes filed for bankruptcy in San Diego in 2008. According to...

The man who became the face of the Toyota gas pedal scandal this week has a troubled financial past that is leading some to question whether he was wholly truthful in his story. On Monday, James Sikes called 911 to report that he was behind the wheel of an out-of-control Toyota Prius going 94 mph on a freeway near San Diego. Twenty-three minutes later, a California Highway Patrol officer helped guide him to a stop, a rescue that was captured on videotape. Since then, it's been learned that: — Sikes filed for bankruptcy in San Diego in 2008. According to...

Michael Fumento writes at Forbes.com that the out of control Toyota Prius story is likely a hoax. Prius owner James Sikes may have pulled off a scam complete with a 911 call to cops when he claimed his car's gas pedal was stuck, and he was accelerating faster than 90 miles an hour. It got far more dramatic, though. The California Highway Patrol responded and "To get the runaway car to stop, they actually had to put their patrol car in front of the Prius and step on the brakes." During over 20 harrowing minutes, according to NBC's report, Sikes...

I’ve been driving Toyota Priuses since 2001. As a junior defense lawyer in the mid-90s, I litigated a number of bogus sudden acceleration cases that were brought against General Motors. So the recent kerfuffle over alleged mysterious electronic problems with the Prius and other Toyotas has certainly caught my attention beyond just throwing my floor mat in the trunk. I knew the public hysteria had reached unprecedented proportions when my father, a Ph.D. geologist skeptical of everything from George W. Bush to global warming (and that’s just the G’s), credulously emailed me repeatedly to demand I read a press release...

The man who became the face of the Toyota gas pedal scandal this week has a troubled financial past that is leading some to question whether he was wholly truthful in his story. On Monday, James Sikes called 911 to report that he was behind the wheel of an out-of-control Toyota Prius going 94 mph on a freeway near San Diego. Twenty-three minutes later, a California Highway Patrol officer helped guide him to a stop, a rescue that was captured on videotape. Since then, it's been learned that: — Sikes filed for bankruptcy in San Diego in 2008. According to...

Earlier today we broke a story about the San Diego runaway Toyota Prius driver James Sikes recently declaring bankruptcy. Now, a review of records shows a link to a sex site for couples and a series of mysterious thefts. Following up on a tip sent to TTAC, a search of California Business Records shows the company Adutlswinglife LLC is owned by a Mr. James Sikes of Carlsbad, California. The company operates the website AdultSwingLife.com (NSFW), which advertises that it supports "The Adult lifestyle, wife swapping, hook-up, Swinger clubs, adult social club, booty call, Friends with Benefits, NASCA" with webchats, message...

A law firm for the driver who says his Toyota Prius sped out of control in California doesn't plan to sue the Japanese automaker. The Gomez Law Firm issued a statement Thursday, saying it represents James Sikes. It was unclear why the law firm was retained; a phone message to the firm wasn't immediately returned. Sikes told authorities he was driving near San Diego on Monday when his accelerator stuck. He says the car reached 94 mph before a California Highway Patrol officer helped him slow down. The statement said Sikes hopes an investigation will identify what caused the incident

James Sikes, the San Diego runaway Toyota Prius driver, filed for bankruptcy in 2008 and now has over $700,000 in debt. According to one anonymous tipster, we're also told he hasn't been making payments on his Prius.