Is this article fear mongering?

ramdulari · Feb 4, 2010

Someone posted this article here, and I read through it. What's the veracity of this publication/investigation? Should we all be very seriously concerned? Is this mag known for stirring things up with thin investigative/reporting credentials?

Seattle News - The Flip Side of the Perfect Prius - page 1

(Note: this article appears to pertain to the Gen-II, but if true, they may pertain to us as well)

Most of all, what do you guys make of these claims - please provide solid reason to refute them if that's the position that you'll take.

It is not hard to imagine that drive-by-wire would be more complex than the old technique by orders of magnitude, but when I opted for it, I did so with the hope that prior to production, this technology might have passed very stringent standards of testing. Also I didn't hear anyone airing any doubts about the basics like drive and brake at/before the time of my purchase (not counting the current investigation with the software brake issue).

DeadPhish · Feb 4, 2010

ramdulari said: ↑

Someone posted this article here, and I read through it. What's the veracity of this publication/investigation? Should we all be very seriously concerned? Is this mag known for stirring things up with thin investigative/reporting credentials?

Seattle News - The Flip Side of the Perfect Prius - page 1

(Note: this article appears to pertain to the Gen-II, but if true, they may pertain to us as well)

Most of all, what do you guys make of these claims - please provide solid reason to refute them if that's the position that you'll take.

It is not hard to imagine that drive-by-wire would be more complex than the old technique by orders of magnitude, but when I opted for it, I did so with the hope that prior to production, this technology might have passed very stringent standards of testing. Also I didn't hear anyone airing any doubts about the basics like drive and brake at/before the time of my purchase (not counting the current investigation with the software brake issue).
Click to expand...

As I suspected the source of this article is noted in the story...to wit.

Stories from other Prius owners involving unintended acceleration are fairly common, and one of the first places to publish them was the Web site www.consumeraffairs.com, which each day collects about 400 complaints that are read by editors and stored in an online database.

One of the trends we started to see was that there were odd things going on with the Prius, not only with the acceleration but with loss of traction on slippery surfaces," says Hood, the former Associated Press writer who now owns the Web site. "The Prius was something a little different when it came out, so we paid a little more attention to it than if it was a brand-new pickup or something."

The site's automotive writer, Joe Benton, wrote about unintended acceleration for the first time in the summer of 2007, telling the story of a woman in Everett whose Prius took off while she was on the freeway and wouldn't slow down even as she repeatedly pumped the brakes.

Hood received hate mail from Prius owners when the negative story was posted. "They're zealots and religious about their cars," Hood says. "Quite honestly, we don't give a damn about anything. If people want to drive those things, fine by us, but our job is to criticize and nitpick."

Then other horror stories rolled in.
One came from Richard Bacon, a Tacoma resident who wrote, "This week our 2008 Prius tried to kill me twice." First, Bacon's Prius died while he was driving up his snowy driveway, causing him to slide into oncoming traffic "that just missed hitting me broadside."
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Let's put this ( bolded test into perspective ). ConsumerAffairs.com - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

From Wiki...

ConsumerAffairs.com is a consumer advocacy and complaints site that defines itself as an “independent consumer news center”.[1]

The site publishes original and reprinted stories on consumer-related topics. The site compiles “consumer news, recall information and thousands of pages of consumer complaints,” along with original articles, press releases and alerts from the Consumer Product Safety Commission and other public sources. While free to the reader, ConsumerAffairs.com generates a profit from advertisements.[2]

The site also maintains a publicly searchable database of consumer complaints about various products, that can be submitted to the website. The site's FAQ[2] states that those submitting a complaint about a particular product must provide their names and contact information, that the site screens the complaints that are submitted and posts less than five percent of the complaints received. The site provides a response form that companies can use to submit their responses.

The site maintains close relationships with personal injury lawyers, among them Horwitz, Horwitz & Associates in Illinois.[3] Site users are invited to submit complaints about consumer products or services to the site, all complaints are reviewed by class action attorneys and are considered for publication on the site.[4] Site users submitting complaints to ConsumerAffairs.com may be contacted by attorneys "in order to determine whether there is a legal remedy for your complaint"; however, the site offers users the ability to opt out of this feature if they wish.

Not everyone agrees with the tactics employed by this website, claiming that it simply pretends to be a consumer advocate site while just being a front to sell google adwords advertising. The website has been sued on numerous occasions.[5][6]

James R. Hood, a former public affairs executive and Associated Press executive, created the site in 1998.[1]
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It's a fishnet for dissatisfied people to complain. It feeds scum-sucking lawyers who are looking for potential new clients for class action lawsuits.

a1a1a1 · Feb 4, 2010

DeadPhish said: ↑

As I suspected the source of this article is noted in the story...to wit. ... Let's put this ( bolded test into perspective ). ConsumerAffairs.com - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ... From Wiki... It's a fishnet for dissatisfied people to complain. It feeds scum-sucking lawyers who are looking for potential new clients for class action lawsuits.
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You might take a closer look at your cites for that "information":

Also from Wikipedia, the CNSNews.com (or Cybercast News Service), formerly called the Conservative News Service, is an American news website owned by the Media Research Center. [1]

The crime of omission is that zealots edit Wikipedia for whatever political purpose at hand. I would put a lot more stock in a local, independent weekly newspaper than I would in CNS, a front for Neoconservatives, the Bush Right and other knee-jerk reactionaries.

I still hope Toyota stock bounces back ...

qbee42 · Feb 4, 2010

I wouldn't even wrap a dead fish in a Consumer Affairs article.

Tom

Tom183 · Feb 4, 2010

When an article cites "critics of" with no specific references and no rebuttal from the defendant, it's not journalism - it's rumor-spreading.

At times, this article is some of both - making it completely useless.

DeadPhish · Feb 4, 2010

qbee42 said: ↑

I wouldn't even wrap a dead fish in a Consumer Affairs article.

Tom
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Yuk :rockon: Yuk....., me either

a1a1a1 · Feb 4, 2010

The Kool-Aid tastes great here ...

Is this article fear mongering?

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Is this article fear mongering?

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qbee42 My other car is a boat

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