Another runaway reported in New York

[Ripley44224]

From King5.com:

Another runaway Prius reported

by JIM FORMAN / KING 5 News
Posted on March 9, 2010 at 9:49 PM
******


NEW YORK - Another runaway Toyota Prius has sent a New York woman to the hospital.
Police in Harrison, NY, a suburb of New York City, say the woman was pulling out off her driveway Tuesday when the Hybrid "shot across the street" and hit a rock wall.
The woman was taken to the hospital, but should recover.
An initial police investigation has ruled out the driver's floormat as a cause of the accident as it was found attached to the Toyota's seat base with plastic ties.
It is unclear if this corrective action was taken in response to a recall on the vehicle.
The Prius currently remains with police as an investigation continues.
The New York incident comes a day after a California man was taken on a high-speed, wild ride by his Prius. James Sikes led a gaggle of reporters to his San Diego Toyota dealership to demand answers.
Toyota says it is sending engineers to examine the car. Federal safety investigators will also pour over the Prius.

[priushippie]

Another case of a stupid driver and Toyota gets the blame. People drive into buildings all the time, it doesn't mean the car is at fault.

[PaJa]

My eyes are fully open and I feel as a fool! It is strange what americans, in general, are able to say to excuse their faults. There are 1000s of Priuses in Europe and no one report the similar problems. It is true, that Prius is not a mass market product here as in Japan and US, but it looks the US market is not prepared or matured enough to use a hightech vehicles widely. Sadly, the PC community is not big enough. IMHO, Toyota will have to establish the "flying investigators" team with ability to read the blackbox data. I have heard about the BB, but didn't notice any mention in the service manual. If Toyota has this record, they would be able to say what pedal angle, what brake pressure simulated, what speed - all at given time was true and they can argue. After that the problems disappear immediatelly.

[priushippie]

Toyota.....Guilty until proven innocent!

[ajc]

Originally Posted by PaJa

My eyes are fully open and I feel as a fool! It is strange what americans, in general, are able to say to excuse their faults. There are 1000s of Priuses in Europe and no one report the similar problems. It is true, that Prius is not a mass market product here as in Japan and US, but it looks the US market is not prepared or matured enough to use a hightech vehicles widely. Sadly, the PC community is not big enough. IMHO, Toyota will have to establish the "flying investigators" team with ability to read the blackbox data. I have heard about the BB, but didn't notice any mention in the service manual. If Toyota has this record, they would be able to say what pedal angle, what brake pressure simulated, what speed - all at given time was true and they can argue. After that the problems disappear immediatelly.

If it wasn’t for the Americans (Please capitalize) Toyota would not be #1 or was #1. Who are you to say anything about Americans? Let all the facts unfold before you make nonsense remarks.

[bestmapman]

I predict a recall to install black boxes that will record the data similar to what commercial aircraft have. That way Toyota will be able to show that these people had the accelerator instead of the brake depressed.

[TonyPSchaefer]

Originally Posted by PaJa

My eyes are fully open and I feel as a fool! It is strange what americans, in general, are able to say to excuse their faults. There are 1000s of Priuses in Europe and no one report the similar problems. It is true, that Prius is not a mass market product here as in Japan and US, but it looks the US market is not prepared or matured enough to use a hightech vehicles widely. Sadly, the PC community is not big enough. IMHO, Toyota will have to establish the "flying investigators" team with ability to read the blackbox data. I have heard about the BB, but didn't notice any mention in the service manual. If Toyota has this record, they would be able to say what pedal angle, what brake pressure simulated, what speed - all at given time was true and they can argue. After that the problems disappear immediately.

I agree. However, here's what I would predict:
Driver: "My car's pedal got stuck!" and/or "The car accelerated unexpectedly!"
Toyota: "We just pulled the the block box data and it says that the pedal was being depressed fully at the time."
Driver: "That's because you can make the data say whatever you want and you're just trying to blame me!"
Toyota: "No really, the data says that you never touched the brake."
Driver: "That's a software glitch!"
Toyota: "Ok, we'll agree to disagree."
Driver: "While I was speeding out of control, I had a twenty minute text conversation with my attorney and he said that I should sue."

[PaJa]

Originally Posted by ajc

.....

Thx, I expected this kind of reaction. BTW. I worked 15 years for US firms, I know your culture well, don't worry. The cat in the microwave oven is still very popular around the globe ;-).
I don't like to start a flamewar, my post was a first reaction when I saw another runaway "incident". My thx to u.

[qbee42]

Here is another thing to think about: If a runaway situation is caused by electronic noise, there is no reason to trust the black box data. Unless the black box data is generated and collected from a separate system, one would expect it to log the same bogus data as that which causes the problem.

For example, let's say EMF gets into the accelerator position sensor and tells the ECU to go to full throttle. The ECU sends full power commands to the ICE and MG2 and also logs that the accelerator has been fully pressed. The result would be identical to fully depressing the accelerator. There would be no way to differentiate between this runaway situation and a confused driver.

Tom

[bestmapman]

Originally Posted by qbee42

Here is another thing to think about: If a runaway situation is caused by electronic noise, there is no reason to trust the black box data. Unless the black box data is generated and collected from a separate system, one would expect it to log the same bogus data as that which causes the problem.

For example, let's say EMF gets into the accelerator position sensor and tells the ECU to go to full throttle. The ECU sends full power commands to the ICE and MG2 and also logs that the accelerator has been fully pressed. The result would be identical to fully depressing the accelerator. There would be no way to differentiate between this runaway situation and a confused driver.

Tom

Your right instead of a black box, a video camera with a recoreder that shows where your feet are would be better. It could record the last 10 minutes and loop. That should do it.