Toyota Recall in the News

[Arab Nights (imported)]

Cops are still people.

Check the accident record of pilots in twin engine aircraft who are specifically trained in one engine out emergencies. They all still do not do the correct thing in the moment of emergency despite the training for that specific situation.

[Il Musico (imported)]

A number of years ago I was driving through hilly country on a highway having quite a few bends and ups and downs. At one place I was driving up a moderately steep slope, flooring the gas pedal to maintain speed. When I went over the top and let teh gas pedal go to roll downhill on the other side, I got the surprise that the car kept pulling like mad, and the pedal felt very loose!

So, been there, done that...

My first reaction was using the brakes, of course, to keep the car under control. When a few moments later the engine was still pulling as hard as it could, I considered putting the car in neutral, but didn't do it because I wanted to save my engine, and was afraid it would be damaged from overrevving if I went to neutral. My second option, turning the key, was out of the question. Many times had I thought about such runaway situations, and turning the key is dangerous, because in the emergency and being shocked and nervous, it's just too easy to turn it too far and lock the steering. Even if that car had the "accessories" position between "ignition" and "locked", it would have been a precision maneuver.

So, I decided to stop the car and quench the engine, just by using the brakes, and so I did. I did it swiftly, to keep them from overheating and loosing power. The longer one takes, the more heat do they develop, because in addition to the car's kinetic energy, which would be the same braking slowly or quickly, they also have to take up the energy produced by the engine, and the gravitational energy released by going steep downhill. Having close connections to physics, this was obvious to me, even in that somewhat scary situation, without having to think much.

So I simply braked until the car and the engine stopped, then I put it in neutral, rolled a bit further downhill and off the road, and there stopped for good, to take a deep breath and see what happened.

The gas pedal was back to normal feeling. I started the engine, everything was normal. Duh.

I opened the hood, and found the carburetor soaked and dripping (water, not gasoline). No broken pipe anywhere.

Then I made the connection: carburetors get cold when operating. The weather was lousy, just above freezing and very humid. What had happened was carburetor icing, probably both inside and outside, and the butterfly valve had simply become stuck in place by ice! I knew that usually happened in airplanes under some conditions, but I had never heard it happening in a car!

I continued the trip, and several more times the carburetor started icing up, but I was careful, and kept moving the throttle up and down to break the ice!

In this context, it's good to know that in any normal car the brakes are MUCH more powerful than the engine, and can easily stop the car even against the engine, if it is done reasonably fast. If instead to try just to keep the speed by moderatly for two or three minutes, they can overheat.

I wonder what the problem was with that cop and his accident. I don't believe that a stuck gas pedal can really be the only cause. That sounds more like an excuse for reckless driving, which would be embarrassing for cops, who just can't do such mistakes, as we all know!

A last thought pops up: "Putting a car in neutral", isn't that like "castrating a car"?

[gareth19 (imported)]

Back to the original post though - I am curious as to why the accelerator stuck. There must have been some cause other than operator error.

The claim is that the accelerator pedal was configured in such a way as to catch in the carpeting; you will recall Audi had a similar problem positioning the accelerator pedal too close to the brake resulting in people speeding up as they tried to apply the brakes. Audi explained that the problem was dumb Americans and their big feet, and strenuously resisted any recall, that was mandated by law anyway. They have never recovered market share. Toyota is obviously not going to try that strategy.

I also have to wonder why someone would be going 120mph=200kmph (with family on board no less).

Once the accelerator pedal sticks, the car will, how shall I put this? accelerate! 120 mph was probably not the driver's original intention, just the unwanted result. With a lot of gas going into the engine, a Toyota or Honda will accelerate real fast; even a Caddie or Buick can move pretty fast, though Hummers are probably so badly engineered and aerodynamically inept that their owners don't have to worry about accidents like this, though they do have to worry about dying of shame from being seen in such a piece of shit.

[Arab Nights (imported)]

I found the comments by different people to be good reminders. I got a ticket (doing 46 just past a 35 mph sign) last year. Here you can go to traffic school so it does not show on your record. One comment the instructor made is that it is too bad people can go years and decades without a refresher course. I would have to agree, because I did (re)learn things.

The same with some of the comments here. Now, hopefully they will come to mind in the moment when a reaction is needed.

[Ernie of Maine (imported)]

Riverwind you should go back and get the original news story. You mit not be so fast to condemn the driver. Ernie.

[Riverwind (imported)]

Riverwind you should go back and get the original news story. You mit not be so fast to condemn the driver. Ernie.

I read the original story, and the several followups to it.

My point was and still is, the news and stories on this are blaming Toyota and fails to hold the driver accountable for the accident. If he would have been thinking he would still be alive, he panicked. The blame is not Toyota's but his.

Further more, we seem to live in a country where everything is perfect and we take no

responsibility for our own actions.

Its always someone else who is at fault, never the person who was in this case the driver.

Spill coffee in your lap, its not your fault, its McDonald's, after all McDonald's sold you that hot coffee and put it in your lap before you drove off.

No I don't think I am so fast to condemn the driver, he was responsible for what happens in that car, he accepted that responsibility when he got behind the wheel.

River

[moi621 (imported)]

What can you do when you really need to stop such a car?

Can't just pull out the key like in the old, Rockford Files.

Throw it into neutral and let it rev until it throws a rod?

Apply emergency brake?

Apply regular brake?

Turn off ignition?

What are the possibilities in these electronic cars, when one goes out of control, high speed

Thanks.

Moi

[gareth19 (imported)]

I read the original story, and the several followups to it.

My point was and still is, the news and stories on this are blaming Toyota and fails to hold the driver accountable for the accident. If he would have been thinking he would still be alive, he panicked. The blame is not Toyota's but his.

Further more, we seem to live in a country where everything is perfect and we take no

1259221200]
responsibility for our own actions.

Its always someone else who is at fault, never the person who was in this case the driver.

Spill coffee in your lap, its not your fault, its McDonald's, after all McDonald's sold you that hot coffee and put it in your lap before you drove off.

No I don't think I am so fast to condemn the driver, he was responsible for what happens in that car, he accepted
[/quote]
that responsibility when he got behind the wheel.

River

The driver got behind the wheel with the assumption that the car would operate safely; Toyota didn't fulfill that obigation anymore then Ford Pintos did when they put the gas tanks where a rear-end collision would burst them and ignite the fuel. No one gets into a car expecting to create an accident, but they do expect the car to withstand one if it should happen. They expect that the accelerator pedal will stop accelerating if they stop pressing on it. Toyota didn't follow through on that expectation. And this isn't the 1950s anymore; you can't turn off a running engine without losing your power steering, you can't down shift gears in a speeding car with an automatic transmission, and emergency brakes are intended only to keep stopped vehicles from going into motion when the regular brakes fail, not to stop a speeding car.

And by the way, the coffee was hot enough to cause third degree burns which the court decided was far too hot for human consumption, and utterly unnecessary, and it didn't spill in a car, it spilled in the restaurant. Hot coffee is desirable, but surely scalding coffee is a reckless disregard for everyone's safety, a waste of time because you have to wait for it to cool before drinking it, and unpalatable because coffee is degraded by excessive heat, which is why you drip hot water over the grinds and don't boil them.

Boiling coffee like boiling milk burns the aromatic chemicals and ruins the product.

[Uncle Flo (imported)]

I am not convinced that the stated reason (carpet interfering with pedal) is the actual cause of this failure. I am more inclined to think it is a fault in the electronic engine controls. The Toyotas in question are controlled by a computer program that, in theory, responds to the driver's commands. --FLO--

[DeaconBlues (imported)]

The driver got behind the wheel with the assumption that the car would operate safely; Toyota didn't fulfill that obigation anymore then Ford Pintos did when they put the gas tanks where a rear-end collision would burst them and ignite the fuel. No one gets into a car expecting to create an accident, but they do expect the car to withstand one if it should happen. They expect that the accelerator pedal will stop accelerating if they stop pressing on it. Toyota didn't follow through on that expectation. And this isn't the 1950s anymore; you can't turn off a running engine without losing your power steering, you can't down shift gears in a speeding car with an automatic transmission, and emergency brakes are intended only to keep stopped vehicles from going into motion when the regular brakes fail, not to stop a speeding car.

And by the way, the coffee was hot enough to cause third degree burns which the court decided was far too hot for human consumption, and utterly unnecessary, and it didn't spill in a car, it spilled in the restaurant. Hot coffee is desirable, but surely scalding coffee is a reckless disregard for everyone's safety, a waste of time because you have to wait for it to cool before drinking it, and unpalatable because coffee is degraded by excessive heat, which is why you drip hot water over the grinds and don't boil them.

Boiling coffee like boiling milk burns the aromatic chemicals and ruins the product.

Even though I oppose the "reputation points system," if the points system were active now, I would have given you points for this post.

Thankyou for "taking up for the Underdog" in your posts.