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Location: Approximately 50 miles from Missoula MT/38 yrs full time after 4 yrs part time
2,308 posts, read 4,129,294 times
Reputation: 5025
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DR1665
This Toyota thing is not a conspiracy at all. It's just rampant stupidity and scapegoatism. This latest guy can't figure out how to stop the car, but at 90mph, he's on the cell phone while reaching under the dash with one hand to try and pull the gas pedal up "in case it was stuck."
Words can't express how far beyond ignorant I find it that we hear this story and the focus isn't on how the guy probably had ZERO business operating a car, let alone a highly advanced piece of technology like the Prius.
All these safety and "convenience" features being added to cars are done to further remove drivers from the actual responsibility of controlling 4000lbs of stamped steel and plastic. The technology is being advanced and implemented to ultimately turn every vehicle on the road into a self-driving, personal appliance. Basically, the common city bus, but with only one person on it.
* Automatic Transmissions - So we don't have to shift.
* Cruise Control - So we don't have to keep track of our speed.
* Anti-Lock Brakes - So we don't have to know how to stop the car quickly.
* Traction Control - So we don't have to think about acceleration beyond "floor it."
* Adaptive Cruise Control - So we don't have to think about applying the brakes when we come upon a slower vehicle.
* In-Dash Navigation - So we don't have to know where we're going in our own home town.
* Back Up Sensors - So we don't have to look where we're going.
* Blind Spot Sensors - So we don't have to look where we're going.
* Park Assist - So we don't have to know how to park.
* Hybrids - So we don't have to worry about actually being environmentally responsible.
All these features add to the weight, the complexity, and the cost of new vehicles. At the same time, they imply a greater sense of security behind the wheel - a false sense of confidence if you will - that results in more aggressive driving by a population becoming less and less capable of actually controlling a vehicle.
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin
In a car with mechanical connections for the throttle, transmission, and brakes, there is no reason why anyone smarter than a tire shouldn't be able to stop it if the engine took off. but if all that connects the driver to these systems is a $30,000 Xbox controller, well, I guess natural selection will not go quietly into that good night. Idiocracy be damned.
Besides, as sad as it is that 50 people have died in "out-of-control" Toyotas since 2002, 3000 people die every YEAR in this country because someone is dicking around on a mobile phone. Where is the outcry over this more deadly behavior? Where are the politicians spouting rhetoric about how the evil cell phone companies need to implement features which prevent any mobile phone functionality in a moving vehicle?
Oh wait. I forgot. 90% of Americans are "better than average" drivers, right? We know what we're doing behind the wheel.
Just a shame that just about anything by actually driving.
Hey DR1665....................
A couple of comments:
1/ Excellent post....common sense and reality.......
2/ I checked out the web site: GearBox Magazine>>> Great site.
3/ Curious.......are you originally from PHX?......I'm guessing the midwest.
Nostalgia: "Oh for the days (way back when): 1940 Merc; suicide rear doors; a flat head V-8 with Edelbrock 10.5 to 1 heads; a 3/4 Cam; 2 Stromberg/Carlson carbs; Mallory Dual Point Ignition; custom headers and Smitty Mufflers.
Going to high school in the late 1940's, I made a few bucks "draggin' on Saturday nights ". (ended up replacing the gears in the tranny a few times), but that was to be expected.
I do not know about others reading this, but I personally think this car is junk and would never buy one. There is way too much computer control in this vehicle for my liking. Whether or not the vehicle being turned on or off is controlled by the computer I would not want a vehicle that has the throttle, brakes and the shifter all controlled by the computer. Are people really that lame that they can't put a key in a slot and turn it? Is it really that much more difficult to turn a key than it is to press a button? If this was the only car available for me to own, the first thing I would do is to add my own separate kill switch.
With all that I have written, I am not saying that the person this thread refers to is definitely not lying but I believe it does show that what he is claiming is possible with a major computer controlled problem.
Thank You for the very informative post. I pretty much set in my mind that I would never consider buying one of these vehicles as soon as you said that the brakes were also a complete electronics-dependent mechanism. Electronics are my life but I don't want them to completely separate my own mechanical abilities from those of a vehicle. As you mention the right combination of glitches in a completely computer controlled vehicle can render the driver totally out of control. Whether or not that is the situation for all these cases, that is something I do not know with certainty... however there is certain possibility.
Another way to stop a vehicle is to safely crash it if everything else fails... wonder if these are steer-by-wire as well...
A girl with no shoes on, in a Prius driven by two broads who cant drive for crap, in a car w/o technical faults, on a Prius-lovers chat room. Wow. Im impressed.
And would someone please tell that chick to get her nasty bunions taken care of, too, thats disgusting. Dang hippies.
I know. I saw that too! eewwee. I was not saying that I believe that forum. Just adding something to the mix. I don't hold much credence in a chat room full of tree hugging, sandel wearing hippies.
LOL...the fact it says the Prius reached speeds of 90 mph is enough to make me believe it was scam!
So true. I smell a huge rat in all of this mess. Let's see, I'm speeding toward 90 MPH, have no way to slow the car down, all over the course of TWENTY MINUTES ON AN LA FREEWAY, and I call 911 but don't have the sense to 1) turn the car off, 2) use the emergency brake, OR 3) put the car in neutral...
Why do you say it is false? The Prius driver was able to slow down, but the brakes were not being responsive, finally the cop was able to help him slow down and finally stop with the powerful brakes that come in a cop car.
So not only does the Prius have an acceleration problem, but some darn Gremlin got in there AND fudged up the brake system as well?
Oh, and then mind control took over; the demon that possessed the care ALSO said "Let's tinker with the driver's mental alertness over this next 20 minutes." "Let's see, I will remove years of knowledge about driving a vehicle and extract his ability to remember how to turn off the vehicle and/or put the car into neutral."
yea? Drive by wire is no different then a cable throttle stuck at wot. The brakes will stop it. EASY. Neutral always works too. Watch this if you don't believe me how easy it is to stop a 'runaway' car.
But, but, there's nothing you can do... It's all computers according to a recent poster. There's no such thing as a shift and the brakes are all controlled completely by software. All you can do is P-R-A-Y!!!!!
The only thing Toyota is guilty of is selling either selling to absolute idiots or those wanting to "cash in" on a bunch of BS.
You're assuming that it's possible for the computer to let you shift into neutral.
Let's see a video where they are going 70mph, then jam the accelerator to wide open throttle and then don't let them engage neutral or turn the car off. I wonder how that video ends...
How the HELL is the computer going to stop you from reaching down and shifting into neutral? Good gosh, has every driver in this country gone insane???
How the HELL is the computer going to stop you from reaching down and shifting into neutral? Good gosh, has every driver in this country gone insane???
There are a lot of people jumping into this thread and posting without reading everything that was said before. For instance, in the Prius, there is no mechanical link between the shifter and the transmission. You simply can't reach down and shift. You move a selector switch and the command is sent to the PCM that then puts the car in neutral. Good gosh...cars sure are complex these days.
I've posted a lot in this thread, so I haven't been rehashing my position every five minutes. People seem to be arguing in circles between what happened in this particular incident and what is happening in Toyota vehicles in general. My take on this:
1. I don't care if the guy was faking or not. If he was it will be found out very quickly by the technical SWAT team that Toyota sent to look at the car. If he wasn't faking, he either wasn't a very good driver (most people aren't) or he didn't have the ability to do the common sense things to get the car to stop. If he didn't have the ability that is further evidence that...IMO (and a lot of people I know)...
2. The whole gas pedal problem is merely a symptom of a greater issue on the Toyota vehicles. Being in the transportation industry a lot of people started talking when the CHP officer died in the Lexus. In that case he repeatedly stated that he couldn't get the car to shut off or go into neutral.
- Several automotive and electronics experts have rigged Toyota's to go into a fatal run away mode using the pedal and throttle position sensors that shorts out the vehicle, making the electronic controls useless. Toyota has countered that the way they rigged the car would be impossible under normal circumstances. However, their test proves that it is possible for Toyota vehicles to experience a run away short that renders the other systems inoperative. In defense of Toyota other vehicles can be rigged to experience this.
- None of the tests that anyone has conducted so far in any of the videos or links or stories is replicating exactly what may or may not be happening in these vehicles. Taking a 100% correctly functioning vehicle and then flooring it and popping it over to neutral or using one good strong push on the brakes to bring it to a stop is nothing more than showmanship, or an example of what you "should" do in that situation.
- NHTSA has been repeatedly questioning Toyota's fix as being complete and valid. There have been 10 reported cases of unintended acceleration after cars were supposedly repaired. There is still some doubt out there about the pedals being the real issue, just as there was doubt that it was all caused by floormats.
I am not a Toyota bashing anti-Asian car maker person. I have managed many fleets and at lest two of them were composed primarily of Toyota products with one of them having over 250 Prius' in it. I am simply familiar with the product and being a little more on the inside than the average person have come to realize that Toyota is not the shining beacon of reliability and technological brilliance that people take them for, especially over the past 5-10 years.
I sincerely hope that I am wrong about it being something bigger than the gas pedals and all of these accidents are a result of drivers not knowing what to do. However, there is just too much doubt in my mind that it is as simple as a couple sensors. I think there is a greater issue with the way the cars are programmed and that they don't contain the proper safety failsafes. I'm sure Toyota will correct it going forward, but I also think they are taking the easy way out on the cars that are currently on the road. Again, I hope I'm wrong, but I don't believe I am.
Deleted due to Egobop's post. He explained some things I didn't know about the Prius.
what egopop failed to point out is that the brake and the transmission selector are separate computers. What do you really think that BOTH of these computers going haywire at the exact same time? Just about nil. So you can always select neutral in a prius and stop it.
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