Amidst the ongoing Toyota recall fiasco, more consumer reports of stuck accelerators continue to surface, feeding the media frenzy and contributing to both over coverage of the matter and even sweatier palms of already nervous Toyota officials.
Real estate agent James Sikes was driving his Toyota Prius through Southern California on Monday when he claimed the accelerator pedal on his Prius got stuck. Sikes called the police as his Prius began to gain speed. At one point, Sikes even claimed to have reached down and attempted to pry the pedal free by hand.
While this all seems perfectly plausible, what’s questionable is how Sikes handled the situation.
California Highway Patrol officer Todd Neibert caught up with Sikes on the highway and instructed him to shift to neutral. Sikes refused, only to later explain to reporters that he was afraid the car would flip he if did so.
As someone who still drives and strongly prefers cars with manual transmissions, I can say with confidence that my car has never flipped during the several times I’ve shifted to neutral on the highway for whatever reason.
Sikes claimed his runaway Prius reached speeds of more than 90 miles per hour during the 23 minutes the pedal was stuck. He was able to bring the car to a stop after shutting off the ignition.
In short, as if the assertion of shifting to neutral would flip the car wasn’t absurd enough, Sikes raced on Southern California highways for 23 minutes before realizing he could just turn his car off. By then, the brakes on his Prius had been grilled to a crisp.
Neibert found that both the accelerator and brake pedals were in the correct resting position after Sikes brought the car to a standstill. There was also no sign the floor mat contributed to the cause.
There is no doubt Toyotas are suffering from dangerous accelerator problems, as recalls don’t commence over unfounded issues, but it seems too coincidental that reports of stuck accelerators have skyrocketed only after a worldwide investigation of the matter began.
Did it take massive media coverage of the matter for Toyota owners to become aware of what may have been an existing defect? Or are people simply taking advantage of the situation?
Toyota saw a decline in sales of 9 percent in February in the U.S due its recently shattered reputation. Recalls of the affected models have been well underway for some time now, and it’s strongly advised by Toyota and safety experts that owners of the applicable models take their cars in for servicing.
Lawsuits initiated by the owners who originally experienced stuck accelerators are well within reason, but these recent accusations seem unnecessary.
Cars are complex machines, and a quick search reveals that no major automaker has a flawless record. Let’s hope Sikes’ report is one of the last.
Newton Liu is a communication junior and may be reached at opinion@thedailycougar.com
I was talking to a Toyota owner while waiting at the car wash, he told me his ’07 Camry had always surged from time to time, but never a runaway surge. He thought it probably had something to do with the gas or moisture in the tank. I ask him if he’d carried it in, and he said no, not until the recall. He did tell me, until the recall he did not know there was a problem with Toyota.
I cannot believe you think people are taking advantage if the situation. What do they have to gain? My parents had accident with their 2009 Corolla caused by Sudden Acceleration. The dealer told them that there was noting wrong with the car so it must be your fault. The dealer did not want to inspect it or file a report. People are filing the reports with the NHTSA because the promised recalls were not for their cars or did not fix the problem. They want their car fixed.
If you believe people are taking advantage of the you should go out and buy one. I sure there are some great deals on them.
I’ve been in the retail auto business for over 20 years. If there is only one thing I have learned in all this time, it is that car buyers are often liars. They lie to get a lower price on a new car, they lie to get a higher price on their trade in. They lie to get free or discounted repairs or to get something covered under warranty when it otherwise wouldn’t be.
Now, we have very tragic, although EXTREMELY isolated, incidents where people have lost their lives in a Toyota product, and all of a sudden out of nowhere, every Toyota owner has had an acceleration issue. I’m sorry, but that just doesn’t pass the “smell test” here.
Take the media, the government, and these class-action vulture lawyers who advertise their services at 3AM along with the latest miracle diet pill, exercise machine, Hair Club, or whatever Ron Popeil is up to, OUT of the equation, and what do you have left?
A bunch of people who have either neglected or ignored the manufacturer’s guidelines for operating their vehicles, and who probably can’t even FIND, let alone have ever opened their owner’s manual. People who have opted to take their cars to some national lube, oil and filter chain to save $10, and have aftermarket, stereos, DVDs, GPS, or other electronic equipment installed at an establishment of questionable repute, then have the audacity to wonder WHY is their car not working properly, and the GALL to blame the dealer who more often than not hasn’t seen the car since the day they sold it.
I’ve bought several cars over my time on this planet. If there is only one thing I have learned in all this time, it is that car salesman are often liars. They lie to get a higher price on a new car, they lie to get a lower price on the trade-in. They lie about services and repairs, and find ways to dodge questions and place blame on others in order to make a buck.
Now, we have very tragic, although EXTREMELY isolated, incidents where people have lost their lives in a Toyota product, and all of a sudden out of nowhere, people are afraid that they, too, may lose their lives in their Toyota products. Because people have died in Toyotas, and they own Toyotas…
Take the media, the government, and these class-action vulture lawyers OUT of the equation, and what do you have left? Multiple fatalities caused by a manufacturer defect.
All joking aside, KN, nice try on blaming the operators. It’s especially nice to imply that the reason they were killed in auto accidents is because they went to a dealership competitor for services, and I’m sure that doesn’t have any influence on your economic situation at all, so you’re not biased in any way. I’m honestly curious: do you have some data that we don’t about these automobiles, like how many after-market modifications they have, where they were done, etc? I’m sure you don’t, because that seems like information that would be rather relevant to determining the cause of these runaway accidents.
In reality, this is a very isolated incident, and more people are at risk just driving their cars every day than people are at risk driving a Toyota specifically – there are hundreds of fatal auto accidents each month regardless of what car you drive. But to go around blaming individuals for these problems when there are multiple cases, each one different, takes a pretty low individual.
If this gentleman is so overwhelmed by whole driving experience that it takes him over 20 minutes to muster the presence of mind to apply the brakes, put the car in neutral and/or shut of the car, even with direction from others, then he shouldn’t be driving! Period! I sure don’t want to share the road with someone like that. The fact is, the brakes alone are more than enough to stop any car even at full throttle within a few hundred feet, which makes this situation very suspicious. Which leads to the other possibility that he deliberately did this, and you have to be incredibly naïve not to know that there are countless people out there who will do anything simply for public attention. Half the shows on TV these days are dedicated to people like this! And there have been incidents in the past where people have claimed that they couldn’t stop their car, only to be proven later on that they lied. Now perhaps there was a legitimate, if unbelievably unlikely, electrical and/or mechanical fault with this guys car that required 20 minutes to get the car to stop, and I’m not saying that there are no defects with some Toyota cars. But we have to stop taking all of these claims at face value. People crash their cars for all sorts of crazy reasons, and the vast majority of them are due to operator error.
About 45 yrs ago a woman leaving a restaurant in Middletown, Ohio lost control of her car and hit a tree across the street rather than making the 90 degree turn to the right.as she intended to do. The couple exited the car as a crowd gathered. I noticed the woman did not have a right shoe on her foot. I found it in the car with the high heel wedged between the gas pedal and the bell housing/transmission hump in the floorboard.
About 30 yrs ago I read a story in a Cincinnati paper about a woman who was screaming as she was driving on the street with the door open as if about to jump out. She was yelling “it won’t stop, it wont stop” She hit another vehicle and subsequently died. An inspection of the vehicle showed a broken throttle return spring. I made a comment to my wife about not being able to believe that a person could be so ignorant as to not know how to stop a car in that situation. Surprisingly, my wife asked me what to do in such a case. ( I almost didn’t tell her)
Moral: avoid Ohio.
As much as you criticize him for writing this and saying that he is at wrong saying people would take advantage of a situation like this, it’s not at all surprising someone would want to. Not everyone is an honest, hard working American, and with the way things are going these days it’s not surprising people are trying to do whatever they can to make a quick buck. Also just an FYI google search “sikes runaway toyota prius hoax” and you see this man has more than reasonable cause for faking this.