? dealing w/ this acceleration prob.

[Particle Man]

Originally Posted by shmike

Good article.

agreed.

Particularly telling:

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

as was this:

Neither the Camry’s nor the Infiniti’s automatic transmission showed any hesitancy to shift into neutral or park when accelerating at full tilt.

and this:

new wrinkle here: the keyless, push-button start-and-stop systems in many vehicles. Owners need to be aware that these systems require a long press of the button to shut off power when the car is moving (so that an inadvertent touch of the button by the driver doesn’t kill the engine).

- in other words, if you don't know how to use it, don't freakin' DRIVE it.

[Avatard]

Originally Posted by shmike

Good article.

Yeah, but I didn't need Car and Driver to tell me that. Anyone who's ever played much with cars knows that the brakes will overcome ANY motor.

[shmike]

Originally Posted by Avatard

Yeah, but I didn't need Car and Driver to tell me that. Anyone who's ever played much with cars knows that the brakes will overcome ANY motor.

I didn't need the article to tell me the obvious but it is nice to see it in print.

It also gives us a convenient place to point any naysayers.

Your last statement begs for a rebuttal but why ruin us agreeing with facts?

[goof2]

After practically nonstop coverage for weeks about how Toyotas were death traps with the controllability of a wild horse this story pretty much died months ago. This was also after the coverage forced Toyota to spend billions on a recall. Now the DOT has preliminary results from examining a sampling of crash data recordings recovered from cars involved in accidents the drivers insist were the result of sudden uncontrollable acceleration. Can anyone guess what that examination found?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...cfm=BadDrivers

The U.S. Department of Transportation has analyzed dozens of data recorders from Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles involved in accidents blamed on sudden acceleration and found that the throttles were wide open and the brakes weren't engaged at the time of the crash, people familiar with the findings said.

The early results suggest that some drivers who said their Toyotas and Lexuses surged out of control were mistakenly flooring the accelerator when they intended to jam on the brakes.

But the findings—part of a broad, ongoing federal investigation into Toyota's recalls—don't exonerate the car maker from two known issues blamed for sudden acceleration in its vehicles: "sticky" accelerator pedals that don't return to idle and floor mats that can trap accelerators to the floor.

The findings by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration involve a sample of the reports in which a driver of a Toyota vehicle said the brakes were depressed but failed to stop the car from accelerating and ultimately crashing.

A NHTSA spokeswoman declined to comment on the findings, which haven't been released by the agency.

The data recorders analyzed by NHTSA were selected by the agency, not Toyota, based on complaints the drivers had filed with the government. Toyota hasn't been involved in interpreting the data.

The initial findings are consistent with a 1989 government-sponsored study that blamed similar driver mistakes for a rash of sudden-acceleration reports involving Audi 5000 sedans.

The Toyota findings appear to support Toyota's position that sudden-acceleration reports involving its vehicles weren't caused by electronic glitches in computer-controlled throttle systems, as some safety advocates and plaintiffs' attorneys have alleged. More than 100 people have sued the car maker over crashes they claim were the result of faulty electronics.

It is unknown how many data recorders NHTSA has read so far. The agency's investigators have been reading the data only since Toyota provided the agency with 10 reading devices in March.

Since then, investigators have responded to accidents involving sudden acceleration when the driver claims to have been stepping on the brakes.

Because the data recorders can lose their information if disconnected from the car's battery or if the battery dies—as could happen after a crash—the agency is focusing only on recent accidents, said a person familiar with the situation.

NHTSA has received more than 3,000 complaints of sudden acceleration in Toyotas and Lexuses, including some dating to early last decade, according to a report the agency compiled in March. The incidents include 75 fatal crashes involving 93 deaths.

However, NHTSA has been able to verify that 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.

Toyota has since recalled more than eight million cars globally to fix floor mats and sticky accelerators.

The NHTSA spokeswoman said the agency wouldn't comment on its Toyota probe until a broader study is completed in conjunction with NASA, which is expected to take months.

Daniel Smith, NHTSA's associate administrator for enforcement, told a panel of the National Academy of Sciences last month that the agency's sudden-acceleration probe had yet to find any car defects beyond those identified by the company: pedals entrapped by floor mats, and accelerator pedals that are slow to return to idle.

"In spite of our investigations, we have not actually been able yet to find a defect" in electronic throttle-control systems, Mr. Smith told the scientific panel, which is looking into potential causes of sudden acceleration.

"We're bound and determined that if it exists, we're going to find it," he added. "But as yet, we haven't found it."

Some Toyota officials say they are informally aware of the NHTSA data-recorder results. Toyota officials haven't been briefed on the findings, but they corroborate its own tests, said Mike Michels, the chief spokesman for Toyota Motor Sales.

Toyota says its own downloads of data recorders have found evidence of sticky pedals and pedal entrapment as well as driver error, which is characterized by no evidence of the brakes being depressed during impact.

Still, since the start of Toyota's troubles late last summer, the Japanese company hasn't blamed drivers for any of the sudden-acceleration incidents, though in many cases the company couldn't find another cause. Toyota President Akio Toyoda has said the company won't pin the blame on customers for its problems as part of its public-relations response.

An attorney who represents four drivers who sued Toyota in state courts over sudden acceleration said the NHTSA finding doesn't mean much for his litigation. "Toyota has always taken the position that the electronic data recorder system is not reliable," said Tab Turner, the Little Rock, Ark., lawyer.

A Toyota spokesman said the company considers the device "a prototype tool. It wasn't designed to tell us exactly what happened in an accident. It was designed to tell us whether our systems were operating properly."

One case studied by U.S. regulators involves Myrna Marseille of Kohler, Wis., who reported in March that her 2009 Toyota Camry accelerated out of control and crashed into a building.

Ms. Marseille said in an interview Tuesday that she was entering a parking space near a library when she heard the engine roar. "I looked down and my foot was still on the brake, so I did not have my foot on the gas pedal," she said.

Police in Sheboygan Falls, Wis., investigated and believe driver error was to blame, Chief Steven Riffel said Tuesday. He said surveillance video showed that the brake lights didn't illuminate until after the crash. But Mr. Riffel said that determination is preliminary and that his agency has turned over the investigation to NHTSA.

Based on the black box data, NHTSA investigators found that the brake was not engaged and the throttle was wide open, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Ms. Marseille sticks by her story. "It makes me very angry when someone tells me, 'She probably hit the gas pedal instead,' because I think it's a sexist comment, an ageist comment," she said.

—Josh Mitchell contributed
to this article.

[Homeslice]

Originally Posted by goof2

Ms. Marseille sticks by her story. "It makes me very angry when someone tells me, 'She probably hit the gas pedal instead,' because I think it's a sexist comment, an ageist comment," she said.
.

No, it's a comment about being clueless. Quit pulling the gender card.

[Rangerscott]

Originally Posted by RACER X

do the brakes not work, when it's accelerating unintentionally?

People's brains don't work.

[Porkchop]

Originally Posted by Rangerscott

People's brains don't work.

I swear to fucking god. Everytime I see something about this on tv I scream.... ITS CALLED NEUTRAL IDIOTS.

[101lifts2]

Originally Posted by goof2

....Ms. Marseille sticks by her story. "It makes me very angry when someone tells me, 'She probably hit the gas pedal instead,' because I think it's a sexist comment, an ageist comment," she said.

—Josh Mitchell contributed
to this article.

Dear Ms. Marseille you fail at the bullshitting. When the data shows you were at 95% throttle with the brake switches indicating applied from the Stop Lamp Switch and the Cruise Release Brake switch at the time of impact it is obvious (unless God intervined, which doesn't seem likely due that that whole free will thing) what you were doing. That being not on the brakes with your foot on the gas.

Stupid cunt.

[goof2]

Originally Posted by 101lifts2

Dear Ms. Marseille you fail at the bullshitting. When the data shows you were at 95% throttle with the brake switches indicating applied from the Stop Lamp Switch and the Cruise Release Brake switch at the time of impact it is obvious (unless God intervented, which doesn't seem likely due that that whole free will thing) what you were doing. That being not on the brakes with your foot on the gas.

Stupid cunt.

Add in that the cop saying that video surveillance showed her brake lights didn't come on until after the building jumped in front of her and it really doesn't look promising for Ms. Marseille. Too bad she will probably end up getting a settlement from Toyota anyway since going to court with their current reputation (thanks media) probably wouldn't be any more promising for Toyota.

[MILK]

My Camry accelerates every single time my foot pushes the gas pedal!!