Run Away Prius

I can't get a break. Try to inject some levity and I'm accused of flaming. Other times I'm accused of being too harsh or undiplomatic. To hell with it, I'll just start typing what I'm really thinking rather than filtering it for public consumption... :heh: :target:

 

Probably nothing. That's about how old I was when I experienced a stuck WOT in a farm truck. I didn't have the luxury of shifting as the auto tranny actually dropped down a gear and locked. It was like a thing possessed. Brakes of course didn't hold with the V8 revving. (By comparison the Prius would be an absolute breeze!) Took me a couple of seconds to shut it down, during which I dodged cattle and a telephone pole.

Same thing happened to my grandmother before we "condemned" the truck.

Don't know about your rubber mats as I have the All Weather mats (purchased here) in my '08 and they fit great. They fit right on the clips. This is my 2nd year with them.

 

Peace, dude. Consider switching to decaf :_> Levity is fine, but the guy raised a serious question that deserved some answer in addition to the spelling flame. IMHO.

 

Ignore the criticism Shawn, I thought your comments on "flouring the accelerator" were delightful!

I too deplore the careless, sloppy spelling and sentence structure that passes for dialog in some of these pages. I sometimes wonder if some people have ever heard of spell-checkers, or bother to use them.

Maybe I'm just an old fashioned spelling Nazi, but if one is trying to get a point across in some coherent fashion, proficiency in the use of English does help.

OTOH, maybe it was a simple typo!

 

What a tough room. I thought this comment was clever. Maybe no one in this group bakes.

Tom

 

We still get to beat them up for typos. :heh:

Tom

 

Well, I was going to make a response about using baking power instead, that way the pedal might rise back off the floor if the driver could maintain control long enough...

 

Or yeast, but that would take longer.

Tom

 

Borrow away.

 

Ron,
Spell check would not have picked up the spelling error of flour instead of floor as both are words in the English language. See, anyone can make a mistake.
Anyone who takes the piss for this sort of spelling error is, in my opinion, ...


... bloody funny!!

Oh, and dialog isn't correct where I come from, should be dialogue!

 

i never need to "floured the accelerator to merge into traffic"
or do you think the prius is to slow?
if you drive the prius in a normal way i dont think there wil be a problem.
also you always need to make sure in any car that the floormats are staying at there positions. if not make sure to hold them at there place.
my priu(s)vius work car was not a toyota and the factory mats sometime's did touch the gas pedal. ( there was no posibility to ty them down )

 

i first ran into this real and extremely scary problem with my old 240z sportscar. after taking it to the car wash here in nashville i was stunned when i floored it and it just took off i was able to jam the clutch pedal in, shift into neutral and get the hell off the road. it took me quite a while to figure that the car wash had tossed the floor mat in so that it just barely brushed the accelerator pedal on depressing but kept it from being released. hard to describe but after i figured out what was going on i changed the location of the mat and all was well.imagine driving a highend 21st century, state of the art, car where you are not used to it and suddenly accelerating out of control with no instantly known way of shutting it off. the fear that must have gone through that poor family's mind.
fred from nashville

 

What's "baking power"?

 

It takes power to accelerate (we call it decelerate when we slow down but it's the same thing) which can be measured, we usually use kilowatts or horsepower for cars. So the brakes can have a power rating as well as the engine. In all street cars the brakes have a lot more power than the engine so even at full throttle if you apply full brakes they will stop the car. If, however, you just push them down part way the engine will still have enough power to overcome the brakes and the brakes will get hotter and hotter. When the brakes get to hot the lose their effectiveness and after a short time may no longer have the capability to overcome the engine even if you push as hard as you can.

 

Shawn Clark typed "baking power" (not "braking power") and I think meant to type "baking powder". I was trying to poke a little fun over his typo because he was so ready to jump on the "flour" typo.

Funny how we all see what we want !

 

Yes, I know Pat, it's "dialogue" where I came from too, but having lived Stateside for the past 46 years I now use the American-English spelling of the word, since the "ue" is entirely superfluous.

I think GBS would understand and approve. I also drop the "u" from words like colour, favour,, flavour, labour, neighbour and savour.

I suppose that conveying the intended meaning is what is most important. Back in Tudor times I understand that spelling was entirely optional! But also back then some 80% of the men and 95% of the women could neither read or write, so maybe it didn't matter!

 

I've been accused of being half-baked more than once.

Yeah so tumbleweed has the answer here, even if he was answering the wrong question.

Brakes. You don't need to know how to shut the car down or shift to neutral. Do what you normally do when the car goes to fast: Get on the brakes. I do not believe that there is a retail car on the market who's brakes cannot overcome the power of the engine. BRAKES. Use the damn brakes, and then figure out how to shut the thing down when you in a safe situation. BRAKES. Use the BRAKES.

If you doubt that your car has more braking power than engine power, you can perform this very simple experiment:

From a stop, accelerate as fast as you can to 50 mph. Record how many seconds it takes to go 0-50.

Now, from 50 mph, stomp the brakes and let the ABS system bring you to a stop as fast as it can. Record how many seconds it takes to to go 50-0.

Compare times. I promise that it'll take you less time to stop the car from 50 than to get it up to 50. And that means your brakes are more "powerful" than the engine.

So even you you insist on driving around with those diabolical floor mats, never forget that the brake is sitting right there just an inch or two from your problem. USE THE FREAKING BRAKES.

 

Sounds like some of us having baking on our minds instead of the post!
If you guys get it together to make something good be sure to share the recipe!!

 

Baking Power!

 

Baking powder: A mixture of cornstarch, bicarbonate of soda, sodium aluminum sulfate, and acid phosphate of calcium.