Why the "Out of Control" Prius Driver Is Full of It

Things just keep getting weirder for the runaway Prius guy:

Bankrupt Runaway Prius Driver Owns Adult Swinger Site - Toyota Recall - Jalopnik

I really like the graphic at the top of the page!!

 

That's why getting the attention off of him is a big deal.

With the lease about to expire leaving him carless and the knowledge that a supposed "defective" car would be seized, it was a golden opportunity to get a new one.

What many may find enlightening is how quickly details can be found & shared. How many non-interweb folk have any idea that their private life can instantly become public like that?
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Trouble is that a lot of additional damage (to the reputation of Toyota and the Prius) has been done - thanks to the Press and Toyota's passive response to all of this nonsense. I've actually had more than one person not want to get in my car this week out of concern that my Prius might go "out of control". Idiots. If people are afraid to even sit in a Prius as a passenger, what impact do you think that this is having on sales? So out of curiousity again, I just checked inventory at a couple of the larger local MD Toyota dealers and two of them (Koons and DARCARS) have more than 100 (2010) new Priuses in stock. Unbelievable.

 

I wonder what is happening to their sales numbers post Monday's news story?

 

Koons Toyota ... I hadn't heard that name in a very long time, since when I bought a Corolla there in 1988, then proceeded to put 200,000 miles on it without a trip to the garage.

Life is full of challenges. Our challenge now is how does Toyota and all Prius owners convince all of those "idiots" out there that these cars are every bit as safe as any other car on the road. Maybe it's human nature, but most people have zero grasp of the true risk of death when getting in a car ... any car. People truly think that the risk of death from accelerator or brake problems is now significantly higher than the overall risk of death from traveling in a car. It's actually so miniscule that it's not worth the cost of ink to type this post.

 

Well heck, maybe that'll get more of them to start thinking about
basics like following distance.
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_H*

 

Yeah, it seems that other drivers are also giving me more room on the highway during my daily commute. I guess they are afraid I could go "out of control" any second and don't want to be close to my Prius when it happens.

My friends at work are all prodding me with jokes and telling me I am driving a "death trap".

I just laugh and make jokes with them. This too shall pass, meanwhile just have some popcorn. opcorn:

 

Oh, come on. It's obviously El Niño.

 

We've seen this all before, many times.

Think about all the anti-hybrid efforts of the past. Remember how hydrogen would be commonly available by 2010? Rather than buy a Prius, just wait a few years for a fuel-cell vehicle instead.

That "stop gap" campaign got pretty intense, despite the fact that the logic was fundamentally flawed.
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Indeed, I joke that I'll uncontrollably accelerate to a parking place closer to the Wal-mart entrance, and I could've really used some UA to get up my damn hill this past winter.

 

I see 2 advantages, personally: 1) normally, if I run into the back of another car I'm automatically at fault, but not any more; and 2) since I'm more likely to buy a Toyota before they take my Prius key away, I'll get a better deal.

 

This has been explained a few times already, but it bears repeating. Any diagnostic codes registered in the ECUs can be read by any Toyota dealership, or by anyone with the proper CAN software. There are many, many of these systems around the country, and they don't all belong to Toyota.

As for EDR, that has to be read by Toyota, but in this case it won't help. Since this Prius was *not* involved in an accident, the EDR will only contain a few seconds of normal data. It's not like a flight data recorder on a commercial aircraft, where you can look back through the last 30 minutes of flight.

Automobiles are consumer products, and the manufacturers work very hard to wring out every penny of cost. While it would be technically straight forward to have a flight data recorder in cars, no manufacturer wants to spend the extra money on something that doesn't help them sell the car. The only way you will see this sort of system is if it is mandated, or the costs from lawsuits make it economically advantageous.

Tom

 

I am not the bumper sticker type of guy, never put one on any of my cars.
But I am sorely tempted to get one that says "Do you REALLY want to cut in front of me?"

 

I want to make one that looks like those "THIS VEHICLE MAKES FREQUENT STOPS" stickers that you see on the back of tanker trucks and buses. Mine will say:

"THIS VEHICLE HAS FREQUENT UNCONTROLLED ACCELERATION, AND HAS NO BRAKES".

That should give them something to think about.

Tom

 

The auto insurance industry sure wants EDRs installed so they can avoid paying claims. That's why the ACLU and other privacy advocates are opposed to them. And any judge will issue an order to obtain them for a lawsuit.

23 years ago, our European tour bus driver got a ticket for exceeding the speed limit 3 hours earlier. The technology exists.

Be careful about what you ask for. Unintended consequences may be a bigger problem than unintended acceleration, IMO.

 

Some drivers willingly install these systems for lower insurance rates.

As for me, I'm a "play by the rules" sort of driver, so loggers don't scare me. When I was younger and drove a faster car I wouldn't have like them.

Tom

 

I

For the most part, I don't either. But I'm guilty of unintentional speeding occasionally. And insurance companies do scare me. I think we are going to find a lot of denied claims for frivolous reasons.

 

I was thinking of

I CAN'T STOP
Driving my Prius!!!!!!

 

The electronics of the Prius has all kinds of safeguards built into it such as shifting into Neutral or shutting the engine off or just pressing the brakes. But if the problem was electronic to begin with and a sub-routine was frozen like a program freezes on a PC , inputs such as shifting to Neutral or holding down the Power button for more than 3 seconds may not work.

I know from my Prius, that you can hold the brake to the floor, put the car in gear and floor the gas pedal. The ECU will slow the RPMs of the engine to a reasonable level and the traction battery will start to charge.

If the ECU was not working properly, the engine would race. Right now, you can floor the gas pedal in Park, Neutral, or Drive with the brakes pressed to the floor and the engine will not race, the RPMs will increase a little, but the engine will not race.

You cannot use examples from how a working ECU would keep the engine from racing when it may be a malfunction from the ECU in the first place that caused the engine to race.

But then again, it could just be big dummies just confusing the brake and gas pedals like in the Audi. Or this guy could have been speeding and tried to fake this whole thing to get out of a ticket. Or the next example of a stuck accelerator pedal could be someone just trying to sue Toyota. I'm sure someone will try that.

At any rate, the dummies and fakers make it really hard to debug the cause of the problem. I was a computer programmer for a couple of decades and there is nothing harder than to debug something that only happens once every few billion miles or so. It makes it harder when you add in data from fakers or dummies to really confuse the possible causes.

None of us should jump to conclusions.

Tommy Kahn

 

Wow, this is actually a GREAT idea!
What if Toyota did a Prius commercial with this as their theme!?!
Can you imagine the impact (no pun intended) it could have?
Well, it might be a little soon for Toyota to make lite of this but if the findings do turn out to be in their favor they should crank this up!

Meanwhile, let's work on the jingle:
I Can't Stop! Yeah Yeah, driving my Prius.
I Can't Stop! Yeah Yeah, driving my baby.
Watch Out Now!
I CAN'T STOP!!!!!!!