Prius v (lowercase v for the Prius v wagon) safety

First off ill explain my issue so that everyone knows I or my family are not in actual danger currently.

Upon purchase of my 2012 Prius v (lowercase v for the Prius v wagon, not an uppercase V) 5 I was issued two key fobs. The first was discarded by my 2 year old son. At a price of $400+ USD i decided to continue with my backup, and did not replace the first. Yesterday my second key was destroyed and is unusable. The vehicle is parked in my driveway front facing my garage without clearance. Upon contacting the dealership they informed me i would have to have the car towed for reprogramming. With 3 children, I contacted the cheapest tow truck I could find to have my car towed to the dealer. Upon arrival, the tow driver asked me to put my vehicle in neutral so that he could then put it on his flatbed. Without a key, i found, after countless time on google, that the request the driver was giving me was not possible due to the shifting mechanism being completely electronic. Since I called the "cheap" guy, he does not have the portable jacks to lift my car to rotate, and informed me he could drag the car which could potentially damage it. I told him no, and had to pay the driver to leave without being towed. Why the dealership didnt inform me of any of this I do no know. But this post isnt really about my personal story.

THE SAFETY ISSUE

Heres the hypothetical. Im driving my Prius and i get a short somehow which completely disable the electronics in my car and i roll to a stop on some train tracks. Who cares about the car, lets even say I am safely able to move my children, what about the after affect of a train hitting the car, what about the passengers of that train, what about derailment and the potential destruction that could cause.

Another hypothetical. Accident on a freeway, car is unable to run, emergency so severe that the police need to make rash decisions and not wait for a tow truck....but no...no safety override, no nothing...just cops watching further destruction because Toyota decided to release a vehicle without an emergency override. How this got past regulation? I have no idea, but the government inspector needs to be fired.

Prius v (lowercase v) owners need to file a lawsuit against Toyota for this. It is unacceptable, there should have been a recall long ago. All the posts I see with this issue, and thank the good lord, no actual emergency, is completely ridiculous.

Toyota, I was a Nissan man and I thought id try you out, I was impressed for a couple years...Now?? Never again, you put me and my family at risk is unacceptable. A safety override in my opinion not being on any and every car should be cause to revoke your license to produce cars....period.

 

Wow, my story is yes, my fault. But this post is not about me, its about safety. Am i angry i had to pay someone, and now will have to pay another to get it towed? Yes, of course I am. There are hundreds of hypothetical situations that are entirely possible and DO cause safety concerns. If a satellite falls out of the sky, im not going after the manufacturer of the car, but the people that were responsible to make sure safety precautions were met on that satellite. Toyota failed to do this on these cars. Did i say i was looking for an override to steal a car?? NO! Did i ask for an override to start a car without a key? NO! My point here is there is situations that can arise where it is necessary to immediately move a car, any car, at any given time. If i was an officer and needed to save a person in a vehicle, i could say break out a window and do something about it. Toyota has made a situation that could cause REAL problems. Whether or not you think that they are real or not, is your issue.

To the person that respectfully was trying to offer solutions, they key thing was run over, completely smashed, the holding it to the start button does not work.

I will pay another tow truck driver and have my car towed. My situation is my fault, and I understand that.

Through searching google I strongly believe that the Prius v is not the only Toyota vehicle that has only electronic transmission control. Toyota should really consider what ive stated before it does come to something worse.

 

I was simply forced to defend myself. You better believe that Toyota has a public relations department that reviews the public's concerns which includes reading popular forums about their vehicles like this one. I am not telling "them", I am simply informing people of a safety concern, people that may read reviews or information on products they are purchasing. What did i mean by "Toyota should consider"? It meant there are more people that have this issue than me, and have complained about it.

 

Updates

I have had my car re-towed, and my FOB replaced. My feelings after the fact: Still have safety concerns, there is a potential good end result and bad end result to every scenario. Pointing out a good or bad one is pointless, there is always another.

I posted here to raise a concern, its fair that people disagree. Note to self: don't post on a Toyota lovers forum, you will get mostly hate because people are such lovers of the brand.

I had hoped that lovers of Toyota would instead think of ways to communicate and help make their favorite brand even better.

In truth I love my car, the options it has, the room it provides for my family. I wanted to improve the brand, ie: "Toyota should really consider what Ive stated before it does come to something worse."

This instead turned into a type of political bashing of the other candidate, where instead of improving your candidate, it was preferred to throw eggs at the competition. I still stand that I would not vote for the candidate that can have supporters that cant accept that their candidate is not perfect (not the sole reason to chose a candidate).

Thank you for the input, this is good information to know, as far as the original tow truck guy goes, I made the mistake of calling the cheap guy. I knew it was cheap, and as a person that would prefer a good society, felt it was my responsibility to pay for a service that I should have known ahead of time could be under par. The guy drove quite a distance to my house, was told I had a Prius, not a liftback, not a c, not a v, and I would not expect any individual to know the details in and out of a specific car.

 

there is an anti scenario to every scenario, what is the point in going further? it was a concern on generally safety that i believed should have been considered at time of design, can the manufacturer lay out every scenario? no absolutely not. are there holes and workarounds to every scenario? yes. so it does not matter how i actually respond to your question because there will be an anti scenario, and i care not to continue pointless arguments.