Toyota's runaway-car worries may not stop at floor mats-LA TIMES

[JimboPalmer]

Originally Posted by pakitt

I decided to try to brake and accelerate at the same time.
Guess what? My Prius 2010 did brake but it also revved up the engine and could accelerate - I tried it both at a standstill and while driving slowly - in both cases, pressing the brake pedal did not negate the pressing on the accelerator pedal.

This is also true of (almost?) every other car ever made.
There are several driving styles which involve the brake and accelerator at once.

Trail braking - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Launch control (automotive) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

While I doubt all that many folks are racing their Prius, all cars can brake and accelerate at the same time. If you push hard enough, the brakes always win.

[statultra]

from my experience the brakes override the accelerator on the prius, that force charge mode that bob wilson mentioned is partly why i think this is the case.

in my opinion i think its drivers that accidently step on the gas, a reason for this could be the pedal feel in the prius may be confusing to new drivers.

[seftonm]

Originally Posted by JimboPalmer

If you push hard enough, the brakes always win.

That's not always true.
Putting stuck floor mat survival strategies to the test: Consumer Reports Cars Blog

[howardbc]

I was appalled when my local Toyota dealer told me that there was no recall! He said to call an 800# so I did. A nice young man at a call center was going to read me the company spiel on floor mats, but finally, after I pressed him for specific help for a run-away car, he said to press the brake pedal hard with both feet, put the car in Neutral and hold down the Power button for 3 seconds. This just gets more and more strange and unsatisfactory all the time. I saw the photos of the crashed car in California and it had the same kind of floor mats that I had (until I removed them) but I still think that this has to be about more than just the floor mats.

[bwilson4web]

Originally Posted by pakitt

. . .
My point was simply - assuming that "everything" is computer controlled, like in most modern cars, especially with automatic gearshift, why, of all the safeguards likely put into place, brake+accelerator is not equal to brake only???
. . .

Famous last words:

• Hind sight is 20/20 (perfect vision,) foresight is something less.
• Safety regulations are written not in ink but blood.
• That is not a bug, it is a feature (Ok, software excuse)

It is difficult, very, very difficult, to get an engineer, much less a manager, to change their mind about some technical aspect of a product. I'm an engineer and I know how easily we can blind ourselves to what later seems so obvious.

After the 9/11 disaster, we stopped all aviation flights for two days while airlines suddenly rediscovered the 'anti-hijacking' technique called 'locked and re-enforced cockpit bulkheads.' We knew this answer in the 1960s when the very first hijacking occurred! It took four airliners crashed in one day and 4,000 dead Americans to finally implement what was known over 40 years earlier. <grumble>

I am not trying to mute the outrage but offer insight, an all too common human attribute, to "lock the barn door after the horse escapes."

Bob Wilson

[JimboPalmer]

Originally Posted by seftonm

That's not always true.
Putting stuck floor mat survival strategies to the test: Consumer Reports Cars Blog

We may have read different articles. Which cars failed to stop with full throttle?

As I have repeated many times, Hit the brakes and come to a complete stop, do NOT attempt to slow down. Move your right foot off the pedals and use your left foot. That strategy worked in every car in the article you posted. If you had a run away throttle, why in the world would you let it go again with anyone you liked still in the car?

Shift to Neutral, in a Prius this is harmless, but even if it destroyed the engine, you will have survived.

If both those fail you, turn off the engine, but you will lose power steering and power brakes, so it is not your first choice.

[hampdenwireless]

Originally Posted by JimboPalmer

Move your right foot off the pedals and use your left foot. That strategy worked in every car in the article you posted.

WRONG!

From the article in CR, testing the Toyota Venza and the Chevy HHR:

"This time we accelerated to 60 mph before we slammed on the brakes. Again, the engines downshifted and fought us all the way down. But by the time we slowed down to about 10 mph, the brakes had faded so much that we weren’t able to come to a complete stop. If the driver had less strength or was traveling at higher speeds, they would not be able to slow down nearly as much."

[Shawn Clark]

Any halfway intelligent person would shift to neutral and try to pull up on the accelerator or figure out what the problem was. Not our CHP officer though...

[hampdenwireless]

Originally Posted by JimboPalmer

1) You can brake to a complete stop, then turn off the car. That works on every car. Do not brake just to slow down the car, that will make your brakes fail. Braking distance will be MUCH longer than normal. This works on all cars.

It may work in a Majority of cars but it certainly does not work in all of them. Many cars that do not have the braking power of the engine at full throttle.

[Genoz World]

TOM AND JIM - merely stating the facts in which i saw. I doubt that GMA would air this to get purposely sued by toyota if this were not factual. just concerned, not blowing things out of what's it worth.