Early Tests Pin Toyota Accidents on Drivers (more evidence now, same conclusion)

[Daox]

Interesting...

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

[jedi_sol]

Ha, the TRUTH is not ageist or sexist, the security camera clearly shows the brake lights did not illuminate until AFTER the crash.

[cfg83]

Daox -

I think we read the same conclusion on another thread, aka the Audi example. In almost all cases, the problem exists in the car, but the number of *reports* of the problem is maybe X-times more than the actual occurance :

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.

For the record, I've made the same type of mistake, but nobody got hurt. I was driving my wife's automatic. My left foot went to depress the clutch, which didn't exist. But the brake pedal is wide so it is in the same place as the clutch. I came to a screeching stop. My wife thought we were rear-ended. However, I was lucky because we were driving slow and no one was following close enough to rear-end us.

CarloSW2

[SentraSE-R]

The truth is, there are a lot of incompetent drivers out there - in Toyotas and every other vehicle under the sun.

[Weather Spotter]

thought so, driver error makes more sense then a defect, else more people would have had the issue.

[Frank Lee]

I clearly remembered the Audi debacle and the Toyota thing is deja vu all over again.

[Patrick]

Originally Posted by Daox

Interesting...

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

No surprise there. I hope the GM-backed congressmen are happy they got their pound of PR flesh from Toyota.

[Clev]

And no doubt we'll all now get government-mandated full-on records-for-a-week "black boxes" in our cars thanks to these idiots.

[McTimson]

Originally Posted by cfg83

For the record, I've made the same type of mistake, but nobody got hurt. I was driving my wife's automatic. My left foot went to depress the clutch, which didn't exist. But the brake pedal is wide so it is in the same place as the clutch. I came to a screeching stop. My wife thought we were rear-ended. However, I was lucky because we were driving slow and no one was following close enough to rear-end us.

CarloSW2

I did the same thing a few months ago. I was about to go down a big hill on the highway, and wanted to shift to neutral in our automatic Yaris, and my left foot naturally pressed down. Scared the **** out of both of us, until I realized that I didn't have to do anything with my feet to shift to neutral. Just a force of habit from driving a manual for too long.

Anyway, I'm not too surprised at the results so far. The floor mat being stuck is a serious issue, no matter how easy it is to fix, but the accelerator problems sounded like BS. There were a lot of news stories about crashes and accidents for a few weeks while the story was hot, and then it died down. Even with Toyota issuing the 'recalls', you would think there would still be plenty of people with more accidents if it was an actual problem with the pedals.

[gone-ot]

Originally Posted by Clev

And no doubt we'll all now get government-mandated full-on records-for-a-week "black boxes" in our cars thanks to these idiots.

...this is already underway via the 'proposed' OBD-III and California, who want ON-Star-like tracking and monitoring capabilities for all vehicles in realtime!

...and, the insurance companies are jumping on this bandwagon too, looking into realtime accident "discovery and blame affixation" as well as driving (speeding and milage) monitoring...the more or faster you drive, the more insurance-$$$ they'll charge you.