Crash Data Suggest Driver Error in Toyota Accidents - WSJ.com

"The results suggest that some drivers who said their Toyota and Lexus vehicles surged out of control were mistakenly flooring the accelerator when they intended to jam on the brakes. But the findings don't exonerate Toyota from two known issues blamed for sudden acceleration in its vehicles: sticky accelerator pedals and floor mats that can trap accelerator pedals to the floor."

"However, NHTSA has been able to verify only one of those fatal crashes was caused by a problem with the vehicle, according to information the agency provided to the National Academy of Sciences. That accident last Aug. 28, which killed a California highway patrolman and three passengers in a Lexus, was traced to a floor mat that trapped the gas pedal in the depressed position."

Seems like it's not nearly as widespread a problem as the media made it out to be.

 

People are stupid idiots. What do you expect from Camry/Yaris/Corolla buyers? These are people who don't like to drive. Cars are merely a means to an end for them.

 

No surprise here. Audi suffered the same fate once upon a time.

 

Why didn't these people just brake?! The brakes are supposed to be stronger than the engine. You would have time to do that, wouldn't you?

 

Try slamming on your brake while accelerating. I think you'll find out otherwise.

 

You will come to a smoky halt. The brakes are going to overpower the engine. Truth. IIRC Porsche's stock brakes are good for something like 2500 horsepower. These ****tards stood on the ACCELERATOR instead of the brakes. Also, I witness idiots every day riding their brakes, heating up the fluid, wearing down the pads/rotors/drums/linings, and generally being imbecilic. Go out, get in your car get up to 25-30 mph and floor it. Immediately stand on your brakes. You'll stop shortly thereafter.

At the very least, you can shut the damn car off, put it in neutral, etc. People go out and operate dangerous equipment without the slightest idea of how or why it works.

 

There's a hilarious video of a guy in a Prius explaining that concept to his fellow Prius owners.

EDIT: Here is it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ4PtafRB9c

 

Make cars for idiots, idiots drive them. Unfortunately, idiots can hire lawyers.

Clearly, the solution is to make supercars with manual transmissions.

 

You have given out too much Reputation in the last 24 hours, try again later.

 

The sticky accel pedal is attributed to one MFG of the pedal. Toyota had 2 companies making the pedal assembly. CTS and Denso.. CTS are the ones that started to fail. They used some cheap plastic P43 to save some money i guess. What happened was after around 100k miles or so the bushing would lose its shape. This predominantly happend in cars that were exposed to high temps over time ( AZ CA FL etc etc). The same assembly design was also used in the Denso pedal however that didnt seem to have much of a problem..

What happend (as i was told) in the death of the officer was that the floor mats that were placed in the vehicle by the dealership were not correctly clipped in. It also happend again because people are stupid and seem to think it is alright to put all weather mats directly over top of the regular floor mats.

Of course it was all over blown, why because the american auto industry was suffering (still is) and Government Motors figured a great way to sell cars would be to blemish Toyotas reputation.

I can go on and on, but i doubt anyone would want me to continue, so there it is in a nutshell.