Assuming that wasn't a joke....
If the filaments are hot when there is a crash, they will bend. If not hot at that time, the break, if any, will look straighter.

I read he commented he didn't put it neutral because he was afraid the car would flip.

I wish I remembered where I saw that, it stuck in my mind as soon as I read it.

People that stupid should not be allowed to drive.
Besides, if it flipped, it would STOP!

Thursday's WSJ noted that complaints spike when a vehicle problem becomes widely known. It has been seen before, on the Ford/Firestone thing, as an example. Once people become aware they have experienced a recurring problem, as opposed to random bad luck, they are much more likely to formally complain.

That horse is out of the barn and in the next county. :)

What scares me more is the lane departure warning, adaptive cruise controls, backup sensors, and other goodies in new cars - and salespeople telling the new owners that the car is so advanced that nothing can possibly go wrong.

I think, in the long run, the electronics are going to be more reliable than the nut behind the wheel.

The guy from runaway prius is a flake...http://jalopnik.com/5491101/did-bankrupt-runaway-prius-driver-fake-unintended-acceleration?skyline=true&s=i

You know, over the past couple of days, the majority of people I've talked with about this, felt the same way - that this story just didn't pass the smell test.

Not that anyone was completely ruling out that the guy might actually be telling the truth, mind you - but there was an air to this whole deal that had the aroma of something being rotten in Denmark.

For me, it was the whole body language/facial expression/tone of voice deal - come on, if it actually happened the way he stated, 99% of us would have been so damned scared and rattled by the experience the last thing we would have wanted to do afterwards was hold a press conference, and/or been so pissed off that they would have had to bleep out every other word when asked what we thought of the car and/or Toyota. He was more than happy to jump in front of the cameras when everyone was taking his story at face value, but now that he's running into some skeptcisim from the same media he's lawyering up?

One other item that doesn't ring true - he said he reached down and tried pulling up on the accelerator pedal. WTF?:confused: Unless he can stretch like Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four, or has six foot long arms, I don't see that happening while he's belted into the drivers seat - even less so if he was trying to keep control of a runaway car at 90 mph and keep from hitting something.

Neutral? Neutral? Neutral? Why doesn't anyone ever understand the concept of putting a runaway into neutral? Truck drivers do it all the time and utilize their gearboxes to slow down, but I digress, the Toyota cars should at least disengage gear in neutral at whatever speed and the driver would just stand on the brakes and SHADDAP!

Why the CHP officer Saylor didn't do this in the Lexus he was driving is beyond me...either way Toyota needs to go back to conventional key-driven systems....and FAST!

Electronics gadgetry just aren't worth it

Lots of things can still go wrong. If you can't handle an emergency, maybe he needs to go back to a bicycle. Wait, scratch that, my bike was going downhill and the brake cable came loose. Send him back on foot and hope he doesn't trip on his laces.

For people who are unable to adapt to newer technology, I agree.

Understood. And I agree.

I’m not talking about people coming forth and complaining though. I’m talking more along the lines of how all of the sudden, all of these Toyotas of various models and years are starting to take off on people. Just seems a bit weird.

You’re not the only one.

And now he’s being referred to by some as the new “Balloon Boy”.

If it was a scam. I hope Toyota nails him to the wall.
(Defamation. Slander, Libal . . .all start coming to mind here.)

http://jalopnik.com/5492199/exclusive-ex+business-partner-claims-runaway-prius-driver-a-scammer?skyline=true&s=i

Oh yeah, if it was a scam Toyota is going to ream him out.

It's not solely a case of people being luddites, and unable or unwilling to adapt to new technology. You should ask the following questions, especially in regards to what you would consider to be "critical safety systems" on a vehicle -

-Does the new technology perform the same function more efficiently/more reliably than the older proven system?

-Has the new technology been tested to ensure that the first question always holds true?

-Is the new technology more expensive, tempting the OEM to cut corners on quality control of parts and assembly during production, invalidating the results of the first two questions - ie, is it basically just a marketing gimmick to sell vehicles?

-Does the new technology have more potential ways to fail and put the vehicle/occupants at risk than the older proven system, and what are the chances of such failures?

-Given an equal chance of failure, do the failure modes of the new technology put the vehicle/occupants at more risk than the failure modes of the older system?

-In a panic/extremis situation, is the new technology more intuitive/instinctive to use than the older system - ie, requires only a basic instinctive act such as pushing the brake pedal, versus a decision tree of actions that a panicked driver might not remember?

I think people are just no used to the technoligy.


In a panic situation, people will revert to their lowest point of training. This point is driven home in shooting circles in self defence classes, as is the military. They know that someone who can operate say a 1911 safety perfectly fine on the range can and will screw it up under stress.


The same thing is true in cars, if for 30 years when you turn the key off the engine shut down, and now you have a car with a push button insted. Well thats all fine when your driving, but in a stressfull situation your going to look for a key.

You either make all the controls standard, or train people.

Mercedes does this a lot, you can go from a W123 to a W211 and everything is pretty similer. A wiper control is a wiper control, the light control hasn't changed, the gear shifter hasn't really changed either.