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Re: [Shop-talk] Toyota Pedal Brouhaha

To: 'Team shop-talk' <shop-talk@autox.team.net>
Subject: Re: [Shop-talk] Toyota Pedal Brouhaha
From: David Hillman <hillman@planet-torque.com>
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2010 01:32:45 -0500 (EST)
On Wed, 3 Feb 2010, eric@megageek.com wrote:
> David, that is what happens in the 1000s of cases where people aren't
> dying.  If you notice, most of the fatalities left no time for that. (they
> guy that was in a parking lot and his car launched over the cliff.)

    This'll be my last post on the topic, I think, but does anyone have any 
real good information about these other crashes?  I can't find much, if 
anything.  Just anecdotal quotes, such as from a woman who claims her 
Prius "suddenly" accelerated to 90mph.  So apparently, Toyota accidentally 
installed a jet engine in her Prius.  I'm sorry, I just don't consider 
that a credible story.

    And in the Officer Saylor case, I find it sad, but not surprising to 
note that the previous driver of the same loaner had no problem stopping 
the car, and even continued to drive it.

"Bernard pressed long and hard on the brakes and was able to pull over and 
slow down. He put the car into neutral, but the engine continued to race 
at full speed. After several failed attempts at turning off the engine, he 
realized the floor mat had jammed the gas pedal.

He slid his foot under the accelerator, dislodged it and had no further 
problems, the report says."
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2009/dec/04/report-loaner-car-in-fatal-crash-had-earlier/

    Or this comical story...

"* Nancy Bernstein, a vice president for a Long Beach community garden and 
former science teacher, said she was taken on an 8-mile high-speed ride by 
her 2007 Prius while she was following her husband in a group bicycle tour 
in Wisconsin. She said her Prius accelerated from 45 mph to 75 mph on a 
winding, two-lane highway crowded with 100 cyclists.

"I was sure I was going to kill someone on a bicycle or myself," she 
recalled. "I stood on the brakes with both feet. All of a sudden, I see 
fire. I thought, sure, my brakes are on fire. I thought about maybe trying 
to sideswipe a tree to slow down."

Eventually she was able to stop at the bottom of a hill, using her brakes 
and emergency brake. A local resident rushed out with a fire 
extinguisher."

    So the brakes didn't work for 8 miles... but then they did, at the 
bottom of a hill.  <BillCosby>RIIIGHT</BillCosby>.

    And it was a high-speed ride in which she didn't pass a group of 
bicyclists?

    I've owned a bunch of Toyotas, but the two I have now are 20+ 
year-old racecar projects.  I wouldn't touch any of their more recent 
over-priced crap, though.  Maybe I have an unconscious bias, but I'm 
not seeing much credible evidence to support anything other than typically 
idiotic driving.  I haven't seen anyone propose a reasonable mechanism, 
other than terminally awful maintenance, by which the brakes on these 
model cars can be over-powered by these engines.  I'm more than willing 
to believe that people are driving around with no brake fluid and backing 
plates where pads used to be... but that's a totally separate deal from a 
throttle issue, and we'd see them going off cliffs at slower speeds 
anyway.

drive wreckless,

--
  David Hillman
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