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After this came up, and since we have owned 3 "Toyota" vehicles, I told my two kids and wife if they have any instance of the car accelerating "out of control", to move the transmission into Neutral and then you can stop. They had no clue about this way to stop the car, so I'm glad I told them. Now I really doubt if anything would happen, as I'm in the "It's most likely a panicked driver confusing the pedals" group, but I was amazed that my kids did not learn how to stop a car using neutral in their driver's ed class. We learned it, and our instructor even taught us how to steer and stop without power steering and brakes if the motor suddenly died on us. Plus we learned to put the car in neutral and restart it, if it dies while driving on busy roads. Some people think you have to put it in park to start it. This all should be part of basic automotive safety training, IMO.
One thing I've noticed is that this subject is rather like politics. Both sides are totally convinced of their side, and it is very hard to convince them otherwise!
As an example of things often not being as claimed I believe it's well worth talking about.
I have no doubt competent people can lose control of a defective vehicle. But I also have no doubt there are cases where competent people have had accidents because they were texting, talking on the phone, distracted by a child in the car, shaving, reading a book, etc., etc., etc. and then filed suit claiming mysterious vehicle defects.
Suggestion is a powerful tool. Just as an example, some BMW motorcycles had a 'surging' issue at low speed part throttle conditions, most if not all could be cured by careful throttle body synching and/or a simple downshift. The issue had widespread play on the internet. I knew a service manager who had a customer call and indignantly ask just WHAT the shop intended to do about this issue with his bike. Not recognizing the customer's name the manager asked where the bike was at the moment. It was still in the crate, hadn't even been prepped or delivered yet but the buyer assumed he'd have a problem because he read about it.
That's why I find it difficult to take complaints at face value.
The statistics are just not bearing that out. It is worth the investigation. Old people, distracted people, teenagers drive lots of different vehicles. They favor some brands and models more then others, unfortunately it appears that there's something to this that either hasn't been discovered yet, or been completely ruled out. That's why it is still being talked about.
One thing I've noticed is that this subject is rather like politics. Both sides are totally convinced of their side, and it is very hard to convince them otherwise!
I don't really think so, of course maybe it is and I'm just a victim of it. I just believe evidence rather than anecdotal stories. In high school, I had a friend who rear-ended a line of cars in his Mustang. He claims the brakes didn't work. Did the brakes not really work? I give it about a .1% chance. I won't say absolutely not with completely certainty. But as it goes in legal jargon, beyond a reasonable doubt the brakes worked just fine and he forgot to use them.
NHTSA/DOT tested 80 or so black boxes out of crashed cars that supposedly involved in unintended acceleration collisions. You know how many of them showed that the brakes were forcefully used before the collision? Zero. Not a single one. All 80 some of those people stepped on the gas and thought they were stepping on the brake. They went right on stepping on the gas and not stepping on the brake until they crashed. It's possible the car suddenly accelerated without reason, this scared them, and they stepped on the gas pedal and made it accelerate more, just like it's possible the brakes really didn't work on my friend's Mustang back in high school.
With a separate group of reported incidents and no black box data, something like 2/3rd or 3/4ths of the people who experience unintended acceleration were seniors. That's pretty interesting, no? Either the pulled the sample from a retirement town somewhere in Florida or there's a reason for it. As I remember it, that was a small sample size (20-30), and since it suggested the distribution was anything but normal I wouldn't call it statistically valid. Interesting though.
Last piece of interesting actual data is the spike in claims of unintended acceleration. That's a constant. There are ALWAYS claims of unintended acceleration. But for Toyota in the months immediately following the recall, that spiked something ridiculous like 20-fold. And then it went rapidly back down towards normal over the next few months. Most of those cars weren't new or anything. They'd been on the road for years and years. But suddenly in a few months' time span, they're just accelerating madly out of control for no apparent reason. Or maybe all the people that step on the wrong pedal had a preconceived notion in their head. Instead of thinking they just must have stepped on the wrong pedal, they instead though it must be the car. Then after a few months the hysteria settled down, more and more (and very quickly most), went back to figuring it hadn't been the car and they'd just stepped on the wrong pedal. It's All Your Fault: The DOT Renders Its Verdict on Toyota's Unintended-Acceleration Scare – Feature – Car and Driver
Again, I'm completely open to any evidence that it happened. There just hasn't been any. At all. The cop down in San Diego, for example, that was because they double stacked floor mats from the wrong damn car and they trapped the accelerator. That's not unintended acceleration. It does, however, highlight an area the Toyota needed to improve with DBW, and that is to put int a cutout circuit on the gas when the brake is applied as some manufacturers had already been doing.
edit;
It's sort of like GM's ignition problems where one of the most vocal critics absolutely blames GM for her daughter's death. She was drunk at the time, not wearing a seat belt, and speeding when she went off the road. Those are all facts. Completely possible the ignition came out as well (and GM certainly covered it up changing parts but explicitly requesting the same part number from the supplier, who was also complicit).
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tourian
The statistics are just not bearing that out. It is worth the investigation. Old people, distracted people, teenagers drive lots of different vehicles. They favor some brands and models more then others, unfortunately it appears that there's something to this that either hasn't been discovered yet, or been completely ruled out. That's why it is still being talked about.
I have no dog in this fight and don't know one way or the other.
But I'd bet dollars to donuts if someone in an internet forum was to start a rumor about a particular make & model having a particular bogus problem we hadn't heard of before, within days there'd be a line of folks claiming similar problems who'd never thought about it before reading about it.
So, what are they going to do about this? I have a Corolla. Do I need to call my dealership? Are they going to send me something in the mail? What do I do, besides trading it in for something else?
So, what are they going to do about this? I have a Corolla. Do I need to call my dealership? Are they going to send me something in the mail? What do I do, besides trading it in for something else?
Make sure you know which pedal is which and how to turn the on/off switch off.
Then people would be crashing nonstop all the time if that was the case. My wife had a Camry (prior to me knowing her) and experienced UA more then once. Sure, I believe you Toyota, she doesn't know the difference between gas and brake or even worse putting no foot on either and accelerating.
Happened to a friend of mine in a Tundra twice. Shifting it into neutral stopped in the first time. A curb and a landscape boulder stopped in the second time. He seems to know where the gas and brake pedals are in his other vehicles.
I've long suspected that Toyota is lying to protect their bottom line.
On the other hand, I could probably run over my worst enemy in a Toyota and people would believe me if I said it was unintended acceleration.
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