Toyota to recall 3.8M vehicles over floor mats

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So Mr. Runaway-Prius-Driver is a swinger, and not in the Austin Powers GRRRRRRRRRR Baby, it's the Swinging 60's kind of way either. I edited the article for a more AUP friendly environment.

Jalopnik
Bankrupt Runaway Prius Driver Owns Adult Swing Website

Earlier today we broke a story about the San Diego runaway Toyota Prius driver James Sikes declaring bankruptcy last year. Now, a review of records shows a link to a sexually-oriented site for couples and a series of mysterious thefts.

Following up on a tip sent to TTAC, a search of California Business Records shows the company [OMIT] is owned by a Mr. James Sikes of Carlsbad, California. The company operates the website [LINK REMOVED], which advertises that it supports [INSERT NAUGHTY ACTIVITY].

An advertisement on the [LINK REMOVED] website includes an advertisement for the website, which lists the number for the current real estate business of James and Patty Sikes.

His bankruptcy also shows the theft of a saxophone, clothes and other itmes from a car in April of last year for which his insurance paid $7,400. There's also an anonymous tip on the site

...

We sought comment from the lawyers representing the Sikes family but a receptionist at the firm says they would not be able to provide one at this time.
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The plot, she thickens again.
 
Adamgp
Driving at 90 is one thing, when my car accelerates to 90 on it's own, I would be a little freaked out. Also, some people don't make a lot of sense when they are in high stress situations, and say some weird stuff.

LOL at all the people here that claim they would be Cool Hand Luke if their car unexpectadly took off on them.
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Cool Hand Luke? If that's what it is to not be completely ignorant about car control. How difficult is it to take a couple seconds to assess the situation (is the pedal actually stuck? Hit it a few times to knock it out. If that wasn't it and the car is continuing to accelerate, simply move the shifter to neutral (manual or auto), and get on the brakes and to the side of the road if possible.

No need to be some highly trained race driver to figure this out.
 
While I wholeheartedly agree that it shouldn't take anymore than a few seconds, maybe a minute to figure things out, people do panic. And my long term study shows(my commute lol), good chunk of drivers out there doesn't even qualify to be behind the wheel!
 
Joey D
So Mr. Runaway-Prius-Driver is a swinger, and not in the Austin Powers GRRRRRRRRRR Baby, it's the Swinging 60's kind of way either. I edited the article for a more AUP friendly environment.

The plot, she thickens again.
Click to expand...


This is aside from the part where he's $700,000 in debt... has had numerous items "stolen" and claimed under insurance... not to mention the fact that when his house was foreclosed, someone "stole" the entire kitchen... granite counters and all... before it was repossessed... and you kind of get the feeling that the driver is not on the up-and-up.

:lol:
 
Eric.
Cool Hand Luke? If that's what it is to not be completely ignorant about car control. How difficult is it to take a couple seconds to assess the situation (is the pedal actually stuck? Hit it a few times to knock it out. If that wasn't it and the car is continuing to accelerate, simply move the shifter to neutral (manual or auto), and get on the brakes and to the side of the road if possible.

No need to be some highly trained race driver to figure this out.
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Some people panic when something scary and unexpected happens like their car speeding up on it's own, and can't even remember their own name, let alone what to do when this happens.

Also, alot of people are just plain ignorant when it comes to cars. We were watching the news the other day about the Toyota problems and my own sister had to ask me if her car was a Toyota.
 
Or it's because he's a lying, cheating, dead-beat, swinger who is an attention whore and wants some kick back from Toyota. It's a hoax.
 
a6m5
While I wholeheartedly agree that it shouldn't take anymore than a few seconds, maybe a minute to figure things out, people do panic. And my long term study shows(my commute lol), good chunk of drivers out there doesn't even qualify to be behind the wheel!
Click to expand...

We should make everyone go through a mandatory, very hard driving test. The roads would probably get a lot safer and we'd help fix the traffic congestion, air pollution and energy independence problems, all at once.

Because if I can get a drivers' license with only ~10 hours experience, something's wrong.
 
Joey D
Or it's because he's a lying, cheating, dead-beat, swinger who is an attention whore and wants some kick back from Toyota. It's a hoax.
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Right. Oh, and "treed by Joey".
 
Nice article bringing a bit of reality to the conversation:

http://www.autoblog.com/2010/03/12/runaway-toyotas-what-about-driver-error/

Autoline on Autoblog with John McElroy
by John McElroy (RSS feed) on Mar 12th 2010 at 3:58PM Featured

RUNAWAY TOYOTAS? WHAT ABOUT DRIVER ERROR?

No one wants to touch it. Not Toyota, not NHTSA, not any politician. But the issue has to be raised. Driver error is most likely at the root of these sudden unintended acceleration incidents.

Unintended acceleration is not a new issue for the auto industry. It's been around for decades and complaints have been filed against virtually every automaker. Even more telling, it was around long before electronic throttle controls (ETC) ever showed up in cars.

But we've managed to work ourselves into a hysteria where everyone automatically assumes that ETC is the culprit. That's a dangerous assumption that will likely lead us down a dead-end path, and could prevent us from implementing a fairly easy design change that could cure most of these incidents.

While it is possible that "ghosts" in the electronics could be causing a problem, no one has been able to find them. Toyota has done exhaustive investigations into this. So has every other major automaker. So have all the suppliers that make these systems. Independent laboratories, universities, and government agencies have investigated it. But none of them have ever found the problem. Never. And it is my contention that they probably never will.

Professor David Gilbert of Southern Illinois University did come up with a contrived way of re-wiring Toyotas to induce unintended acceleration. But Toyota successfully (in my opinion) debunked his wiring scheme as something that could never happen in the real world.

We saw the same hysteria back in the late 1980s when Audi was in the headlines for unintended acceleration. None of the people involved in incidents back then believed they had their foot on the gas pedal. In fact, they'd swear on a Bible that they had their foot on the brake. And, they insisted, the harder they pushed on the brake the faster the car went.

The overhwelming majority of people who experience [SUI] are elderly drivers.
Many non-automotive experts tried to cook up explanations as to how there was some sort of gremlin that was causing the problem. None of them made any sense. NHTSA then conducted an exhaustive investigation at the time that dragged on for a couple of years. It finally concluded that the problem was nothing more than "pedal misapplication." That's its term for driver error.

There was something good that came out of all that. Audi came up with the idea of the shift-lock mechanism, which requires a driver to put his foot on the brake pedal before moving the shift-lever out of Park. That took care of most unintended acceleration cases, but not all of them.

The dirty little secret of unintended acceleration is that the overhwelming majority of people who experience it are elderly drivers, typically in their 60s and 70s. This has been true since about the time that the automatic transmission became available to the masses (that's right, there are virtually no cases of unintended acceleration involving cars with manual transmissions). In the past, whenever you read about some car driving through a storefront, or barreling down a sidewalk, it almost invariably involved an elderly driver. And the same is true today.

Some people ask me, "OK, how do you explain Toyota's higher incidence of sudden acceleration?" My answer is that Audi also had a higher incidence back in its day, but it still was an extremely rare event. In fact, from 1999 to 2009 Toyota's reported incidences of unintended acceleration were 0.009 incidents for every million cars it sold. Now that is an extraordinary low number.

The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and National Public Radio have all done statistical analyses of unintended acceleration, but their data are all over the map. It all depends on how you slice the numbers. Interestingly, they show that Ford has a higher number of reported incidents than Toyota does. But Toyota has a higher number of crashes.

Are the elderly people who buy Toyotas simply more likely to get in crashes due to unintended acceleration?

And that brings us back to the drivers. Years ago Consumer Reports did a hatchet job on the Dodge Omni and Plymouth Horizon, saying they were more prone to spin out if you accelerated up to highway speeds, yanked the steering wheel 90 degrees, then let go of the wheel. It was a bogus test, but it did get me to research the issue. As I dug into the data I was astonished to find that Omnis were more prone to get into accidents (of any kind) than Horizons even though there were absolutely identical cars. When I asked Chrysler's safety expert what was going on he said, "That's easy to explain. Who drives a Dodge? A young male who drives more aggressively. They simply get in more accidents than the kind of people who buy Plymouths."

Could it be that the elderly people who buy Toyotas are simply more likely to get in crashes due to unintended acceleration? I don't know, but it's something that should be looked into. I think that investigating the demographics and psychographics of the people who encounter this problem would be very illuminating. Last week I got a call from an elderly gentleman who said he has Type II diabetes, which has left him with virtually no feeling in his feet and he often can't tell which pedal he's pushing on. That makes me wonder if any of these Toyota drivers have Type II diabetes.

If the powers that be would entertain the idea that driver error may be at the heart of this problem, we could start to do something about it. If people are unknowingly stepping on the wrong pedal, maybe all we need to do is add a bigger gap between the gas and the brake pedals. Maybe it should be a foot-long gap.

Unless or until we admit that the drivers could be at fault, history suggests we're never going to find the answer.
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Very interesting. I read that aloud to my mom, and she told me to take out the trash. So I guess it's only interesting to car people. It makes perfect sense and is pretty much what I've thought the whole time. If people were more aware of their cars...
 
The elderly driver point makes a lot of sense. A lot of elderly drivers are lacking in feel on the controls in the first place - slipping clutches like crazy, revving way too high to move off, that sort of thing - and even that's impressive in a way considering that in contrast to the USA, a lot of elderly drivers use manual transmissions in the UK still. That's gotta make the young bucks out there that never learned to drive stick a little red faced, knowing that there's an 80-year old stirring a manual box in their Honda Jazz.

I can see how older drivers could be making mistakes though. Well, logically I can't - the brake pedal on an auto car is usually about three times the size of the throttle (big enough to easily fit two feet on unless you have clown shoes) and right in the middle, so it makes you wonder how anyone hits the wrong pedal.

But would it surprise me if people were just pig-stupid and hitting the wrong pedal? No it wouldn't. A car simply will not accelerate faster the harder you press the brake pedal. Unless you have a complete failure of the brakes and the throttle is jammed wide open, it's gonna slow down pretty quickly if you're putting your full force onto the brake pedal.

I feel quite sorry for Toyota. Sure, they've probably made a couple of dodgy cars, but there's an overwhelming impression that they're suffering at the hands of utter morons.
 
homeforsummer
The elderly driver point makes a lot of sense. A lot of elderly drivers are lacking in feel on the controls in the first place - slipping clutches like crazy, revving way too high to move off, that sort of thing
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I see this all the time. An elderly lady went straight into my grandad and almost wrote his car off because she didn't brake at all when she headed towards him. She just accelerated straight into his car. Imagine if a group of school kids had been crossing.

An elderly driver also drove the wrong way down the dual carriageway outside my house. I don't care what the stats show, elderly drivers ARE more dangerous than young ones. Young people at least have the decency to only injure themselves most of the time, the elderly normally plough into someone else.
 
Oh, cool, we got people with no feeling in their feet blasting down the highway. Why do they have their driver's license still?
 
homeforsummer
I feel quite sorry for Toyota. Sure, they've probably made a couple of dodgy cars, but there's an overwhelming impression that they're suffering at the hands of utter morons.
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I think Toyota's problem is that it seems that they're almost proud of making cars that are stupidly easy to drive and that their cars remove the driver from the experience. And that attracts people who are going to be more likely to do something like push the gas instead of the brake. And I'm sure being removed from the driving experience also makes that tendency worse.

I don't agree that the solution is to design the pedals so that such a thing doesn't happen. I think that the solution is to try and weed out the bad drivers. I know it's not practical, but I think difficult driving tests every 5-10 years for everybody would help keep people who don't like driving and people who just aren't good at it off the roads.
 
I don't have a hard stance on this. Pedal recall, I don't buy. If something is defective, I still guess electronics. Elderly driver thing, they do happen. More than you think, too. They just stomp on the wrong pedal, often driving them right into buildings. One guy at work nearly got killed by one. He was not in his office, but the this van(driven by... you guessed it) crushed his desk right into the back wall. Lucky!

Regarding the article, I think it is excellent. While I'm still convinced not all cases are driver errors, or staged hoaxes, it sure is interesting that no one has been able to come up with the exact defect causing these unintended accelerations.

And Philly, I do agree with you on the license tests. I don't know how hard, or extensive tests should be, not right off the top of my head, but I've always felt that Americans don't have enough respect for "driving". Way the drivers are tested today, I think it is a joke. Maybe you & I, we just take them too seriously, I don't know, but I definitely agree with you. 👍
 
They really should do some stricter testing, there should also be stricter limits. I can't count the amount of times I have seen a car full of young kids messing around on the road. There supposedly is a law that limits drivers under 18 to one passenger, but that only does good if the cops enforce it(which they don't). I think the best thing to do would be hold off until 18 for a license, or at least actual driving experience that you have to prove.( I don't feel the current "take my word" thing works well.)

I will admit though I have been stupid enough to accidentally hit the gas instead of the brake. It was only for a second, but it could have killed someone if someone was there. Of course I wouldn't have had that problem if fast food places got orders right.(I realize that it wasn't their fault that I had a brief second of shear stupidity):dunce:
 
Nice article, except the driver's of runaway Toyota's haven't all been old people.

Also, Toyota tried to blame drivers already. If it were simple driver error than where are all the runaway Ford's, GM's Chrysler's, Hyundai's, etc.? Are Toyota drivers a special kind of stupid?
 
Adamgp
Nice article, except the driver's of runaway Toyota's haven't all been old people.

Also, Toyota tried to blame drivers already. If it were simple driver error than where are all the runaway Ford's, GM's Chrysler's, Hyundai's, etc.? Are Toyota drivers a special kind of stupid?
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All the runaway Fords, GMs, etcetera? Right here:
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UA-21-58.png

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http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/nhtsa-data-dive-3-117-models-ranked-by-rate-of-ua-incidents/

Note, these are NHTSA records, which are spotty, and have some doubling and errors in reporting. As noted by the author, over 50% of SUA cases for Toyotas were filed after the "sticking floormat" thing hit the presses... which is counter-intuitive... as you'd expect the cases to go down! But then, SUA is logic-defying, and a number of those cases are likely caused by hysteria and/or ambulance-chasers. Anyway... this data goes from 05 right up to the "sticking mat" announcement, and excludes those panic reports.

-

There is, however, a statistical correlation that shows an increase in complaints after the release of the 2004 Camry and ES... which both have the sticking mats and the CTS pedals... and complaints are higher for the ES, which is more likely to have been optioned with the mats. Can't find the chart, right now.

This is where the whole thing started... but the statistics aren't as incredibly different as the media (and Congress) would have you think.

It's to be noted that unintended acceleration cases have a positive correlation with the age of drivers. A huge percentage of cases are with older drivers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/opinion/11schmidt.html?pagewanted=1&ref=general&src=me

It has such a huge effect on the statistics that two otherwise identical models can have wildly different incidence rates of SUA depending on what demographic they're being marketed to.
 
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Adamgp
Also, Toyota tried to blame drivers already. If it were simple driver error than where are all the runaway Ford's, GM's Chrysler's, Hyundai's, etc.? Are Toyota drivers a special kind of stupid?
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I've already mentioned some of those manufacturers. And I specifically said that Ford was #2 in that department last year.

I also noted that I'm not familiar of any recalls related to unintended acceleration issued by those manufacturers. It's possible that they are just as evil as Toyota is. That was sarcasm.
 
Adamgp
Nice article, except the driver's of runaway Toyota's haven't all been old people.

Also, Toyota tried to blame drivers already. If it were simple driver error than where are all the runaway Ford's, GM's Chrysler's, Hyundai's, etc.? Are Toyota drivers a special kind of stupid?
Click to expand...
Answer:
Adamgp
Toyota drivers
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Who cares Less about driving in general than Toyota drivers?

And as Jeremy Clarkson said, if you don't care about driving, how could you be very good at it?
 
TrievelA7X
Answer:
Who cares Less about driving in general than Toyota drivers?

And as Jeremy Clarkson said, if you don't care about driving, how could you be very good at it?
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So because I want to buy a '90s Toyota because it will survive anything makes me a crap driver.

:rolleyes:
 
I apologize if this has been posted here already, but I found this take by Car and Driver:
Certainly the most natural reaction to a stuck-throttle emergency is to stomp on the brake pedal, possibly with both feet. And despite dramatic horsepower increases since C/D’s 1987 unintended-acceleration test of an Audi 5000, brakes by and large can still overpower and rein in an engine roaring under full throttle. With the Camry’s throttle pinned while going 70 mph, the brakes easily overcame all 268 horsepower straining against them and stopped the car in 190 feet—that’s a foot shorter than the performance of a Ford Taurus without any gas-pedal problems and just 16 feet longer than with the Camry’s throttle closed. From 100 mph, the stopping-distance differential was 88 feet—noticeable to be sure, but the car still slowed enthusiastically enough to impart a feeling of confidence. We also tried one go-for-broke run at 120 mph, and, even then, the car quickly decelerated to about 10 mph before the brakes got excessively hot and the car refused to decelerate any further. So even in the most extreme case, it should be possible to get a car’s speed down to a point where a resulting accident should be a low-speed and relatively minor event.
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While it's hardly conclusive, it definitely is interesting. There was a comment by one reader that was noteworthy. He says that Car & Driver testing is flawed, because the testing was done using new vehicles, new brakes.

Here's the rest of the article.
 
Bram Turismo
So because I want to buy a '90s Toyota because it will survive anything makes me a crap driver.

:rolleyes:
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Don't take the comment too seriously, Bram. I think it was meant to be taken a little tongue-in-cheek. Of course there are Toyota owners who are enthusiasts and drive MR2s and Celicas, or there are Toyota owners who drive Tacomas and Hiluxes because they go on forever, but for every one of those there are a hundred people driving a Corolla because it's the last car they'll ever drive and use it to pop 1/3 of a mile down the road to pick up their pension. Or a mum doing the school-run in her RAV4, in heels, with the rear-view mirror positioned to allow them to put on their make-up.

Toyotas have (had?) a long-standing reputation of being faultlessly reliable. And as such, they're bought as automotive white-goods. Of course, it's not just Toyotas, but being that they're the biggest car maker in the world, you can assume they have the biggest proportion of white-good cars.

You cannot have any passion or interest in a white good. And if you have no passion or interest in something, then chances are if it's something that requires skill to operate, you'll be no good at it.
 
homeforsummer
You cannot have any passion or interest in a white good. And if you have no passion or interest in something, then chances are if it's something that requires skill to operate, you'll be no good at it.
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This I struggle a bit with.

Even though I do not own a car at this moment, partly because I don't need one at this time, I already know what car I will be looking for; a car that will get me to where I want safely and in one piece. Sure, getting there in a classic or sporty car might be so much more exiting, but I can't see myself enjoying it as much as I'd like to when I'm constantly thinking "Man, I hope the engine doesn't overheat this time."

I can't see how I cannot be a skilled or good driver when I drive a Toyota. For all you know I have a souped up MR2 that tears up the asphalt in rallycross events. Who knows I'm just driving my Avensis wagon to fit the kids and a bunch of stuff in the back.

I'm not trying to offend anyone now, but I do find it a little bit irritating when people say you either don't know anything about cars or you are not a skilled driver when you own and drive a Toyota.
 
It's a generalization. It's a notion. I almost agree with it, too, but I just realized that I know too many car/truck people who drive Toyotas. In fact, I work for a business that has Non-Toyota service shop(Brand "X" lol), and Toyotas are not only highly regarded by the tech's, it, along with the Honda, is more popular personal vehicle of choice for them.
 

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