mikelemoine

Ok, so I know we don't have too many Toyota fans here being a Ford forum, but boy are the vultures swarming on this mess! The latest issue was a Prius running 90 MPH out of control and the driver on the phone with 911.

The article said the guy didn't respond to operator instructions (IE: did you put it in neutral?) and was totally panicked. Finally the guy listened to a trooper who told him to push the brakes hard along with the parking brake and it finally slowed down.

It seems that the guy would have thought of using both feet on the brakes himself. As for the trooper's advice, pulling the parking brake at 90 is downright dangerous as it could put the car into a spin and I would assume a rollover in a short wheelbase roller skate like the Prius. Supposedly the start/stop button didn't work until he got it down to 55 MPH with the brakes. Not sure if that was driver panic (not holding it for 3 sec) or if the computer locks the button out at speed. Would be interesting to see what they find out.

At this point, I have to say that while the Toyotas should never have this issue, the big problem is the lack of driving skill of the general public. A 61 year old guy has likely been driving longer than I've been alive. If he couldn't figure it out, how is a 26 y/o soccer milf on her cell while doing make up while drinking a venti mocha latte going to deal with emergencies behind the wheel?

Parallel parking and identifying signs are important but what about requiring people to learn emergency maneuvers? Things like counter steering, high speed tire blowouts, brake failure, car bursts into flames or runaway throttle (even throttle return springs on mechanical throttles like ours can fail). These are all things that can and do happen to cars, people should learn how to deal with them. Most people don't even know how to change their own flat tire or realize their handling changes when they have passengers (big center of gravity change in a typical mini-van). Pilots and semi truck drivers need to know about checking safety equipment, yet regular drivers don't. While cars have less potential to do big scale damage like a plane going down does, the sheer number of them means at some point someone will get hurt or killed due to equipment failure.

If I were Allstate or State Farm, I'd be running PSA's telling people how to control their car if an emergency happens. Might save some lives and claims.

Rant over!

Harley#356

big problem is the lack of driving skill of the general public

Thats been the topic of so many automotive blogs popping up lately. I've got autoblog, jalopnik, and a couple others on my google reader, an they're posting up articles just like you were writing about above. The lack of common sense and stupidity of drivers is astounding. They use the term "beige" instead of "vanilla" (since vanilla is at least a tasty ice cream flavor, and beige just screams nothing but bland, boring, & dull) to describe the ever increasing removed experience from driving a vehicle anymore with each year car, that most drivers can't even handle the simplest things anymore because they're so used to that disconnection. I can't stand driving newer cars like that. My mom's 2007 hyundai sonata I feel like I'm sitting in a video game, you can romp on and off the throttle and it dampens all those signals, and the steering feels like your spinning a playstation wheel controller, and the gear shifts are so slurred you feel like you're sitting on the couch at home. Even on newer stick shift cars, my gf's SRT-4 neon, while you do get more of the feel of the car, the clutch is so soft and easy, you may as well be driving a manumatic auto with the slap-stick lol. I absolutely love driving my 85 because I can feel & hear everything its doing, you get that full driving feel lol

It boggles my mind how anyone could be in that sort of a situation and be at a total blank to not think to either mash the brake pedal with both feet, or shift it into neutral, or heck just downshift it manually, or to turn the car off, yet they think to pull out the phone and dial 911 to have a conversation with the operator asking what to do?

Even the cars mostly all having push button starts now days, I hear these people always just push the button really fast to try and turn the car off, and you need to hold it for 3 seconds to actually turn it off. And now they're adding features in that like 3 rapid presses in succession will turn the car off as well, but chit, I'm sure 99.999% of people driving these cars have had a computer freeze up on them where they had to do a hard restart. How do you do that? You HOLD the f'ing button in till it shuts off. I've never seen anybody just rapidfire hit the power button on the computer

Toyota has seemed to royally screw up, but each and every one of these idiots who don't know how to drive should also be put on public display to shame all the other idiot drivers out there to learn a little driving common sense as well.

'02HD#3982

He was probably one of those people that thought his car was doing ok,so he didnt take it in for the recall.

And Im going with "mike" on this one.I wouldnt have used the e-brake on this little chitbox.With the motor going full-bore on a rwd car,the motor would be fighting the brakes.On this turd,,,,one click of the e-brake,could be the difference between slowing down,,and tumbling down the highway.

Blind

I'd slide that ***** into the center divider if I couldn't get it to stop with the brakes, should grind to a stop pretty easy.

mikelemoine

Actually it said he did take the car in and was told it was ok! Can you say LAWSUIT!

'02HD#3982

Ooops.