http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/08/AR2011020800540.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2011020803857

Remember a while back when there was all that furor about Toyota cars accelerating out of control? Turns out it was, as suspected by many, probably caused by driver error, just like all the other sudden acceleration complaints in the past with other car makers.

2/9/2011 12:19:27 PM

And all the politicians and pundits that came out against Toyota will retract their statements and publicly apologize...right?

2/9/2011 12:51:15 PM

^^ not the conclusion that i read.

they said it wasn't caused by electronic/software errors. the software of 280,000 lines was analyzed by nasa and they found nothing wrong.

the problem was mechanical they said, i.e., most probably the sticky pedals and defective mats which would catch the pedals.

you have to think, why would such a specific driver error suddenly happen with one brand only, and only with certain cars produced during a certain period of that brand? that's just impossible. so, problem was structural/mechanica; vis-a-vis the pedals and mats/carpets.

2/9/2011 1:01:39 PM

^That's what I read as well.

I've got to wonder... did the gas pedal stay depressed. That's to say did the pedal go down and stay down, or did the pedal come back up and some internal mechanism stayed down.

In the case of the floor mat I would think that the driver could realize that the pedal was snagged on the mat and just slide the mat over. If the pedal stuck down I'd try putting my foot on the other side and lifting it. I guess people couldn't think straight when panic set in.

2/9/2011 1:14:07 PM

Didnt they find one case where the guy basically made the whole thing up and pretended his car couldnt stop because he wanted to sue Toyota.

2/9/2011 1:26:31 PM

Hmmm, not what I read at all. 1 of the cases examined was found to be due to a floormat, everything else appears to be driver error. As for why so many cases of toyotas specifically... I would refer you to the case of the Audi 5000 from some time back.

2/9/2011 1:26:54 PM

^^^ Try repositioning your floor mat while driving, then try repositioning your floor mat while driving and also unexpectedly speeding out of control. I doubt either task is very easy.

[Edited on February 9, 2011 at 1:28 PM. Reason : more ^s]

2/9/2011 1:27:57 PM

Quote :

"you have to think, why would such a specific driver error suddenly happen with one brand only, and only with certain cars produced during a certain period of that brand?"

Because people read newspapers watch cable news.

2/9/2011 1:40:08 PM

troubleshooting 101: If the design and implementation are sound and tested, and something completely bizare happens ,99% of the time its user error.

[Edited on February 9, 2011 at 1:42 PM. Reason : ,]

2/9/2011 1:40:36 PM

Quote :

"you have to think, why would such a specific driver error suddenly happen with one brand only, and only with certain cars produced during a certain period of that brand? that's just impossible."

Wrong. We've seen precisely that sort of thing happen before.

Pretty much all cars have some unintended acceleration incidents reported. Virtually all of these are due to driver error. But every so often, some jackass can't accept that it was their fault that they crashed their car. They look up the stats and see that other people have reported their brand of car getting away from them. It doesn't matter that this number is probably insignificant; they make a fuss. Every so often, circumstances allow them to make a fuss in public.

Word spreads. Suddenly, everybody who gets into an accident driving that kind of car thinks it was the car's fault. Reports of UAI's shoot through the roof. The error hasn't actually gotten more common, blaming it in accident reports has gotten more common. The public sees the huge increase, though, and thinks Toyotas are going to start terrorizing them. They demand that the government do a very expensive, very pointless study of the problem. No bureaucrat wants to come out and call the public (or the drivers in question) morons, so they do the study and can't even fully admit the truth after they've proved it.

I'll direct you to "Parliament of Whores," one chapter in which does a pretty good job of explaining how the exact same thing happened to Audi in the 1980s.

[Edited on February 9, 2011 at 1:45 PM. Reason : ]

2/9/2011 1:44:52 PM

I had an Audi 5000 when I was a kid. I abused the hell out of that car and it kept on running. I wish my parents had never gotten rid of it.

Audi's sales plummeted 80% over 4 years because of that fiasco. They nearly exited the US market. Toyota, however, has hardly suffered at all.

2/9/2011 4:49:54 PM

My vw had a case of this.
I just pushed in the clutch and turned the car off.
Turns out it was a shorted wire under the car that fried the throttle control circuit of the computer.
I didn't sue VW, and I didn't crash.
Amazing

2/9/2011 6:35:42 PM

Maybe GM/Chrysler paid the guy to sue.

2/9/2011 6:47:56 PM

I used to drive a Geo Prizm that had a throttle that would stick occasionally due to a mechanical flaw (sometimes the throttle chain would get caught on another engine part). However, rather than speeding to my death or a major collision I just shifted into neutral and cut the engine when I came to a stopping point...

2/9/2011 7:36:07 PM

Quote :

"Try repositioning your floor mat while driving, then try repositioning your floor mat while driving and also unexpectedly speeding out of control. I doubt either task is very easy."

Yeah, maybe. I've adjusted my floor mat while driving on a few occasions. Not that hard to do, but I don't know how their floor mat was holding the pedal down and I didn't have a crisis. I just had to tug at the bottom of the floor mat to slide it toward me a bit.

2/9/2011 9:14:13 PM

Floormats / pedal sticking was responsible for several fatalities. People don't fake fatalities.

Claims by the OP found bogus.

2/9/2011 9:21:58 PM

Quote :

"People don't fake fatalities."

lol. Human error often results in death. No one's saying that these people purposely put their foot to the pedal and refused to let off until they ran into an object.

2/9/2011 9:50:31 PM

yes, because NO ONE has ever been killed by hitting the gas instead of the pedal. NO ONE

2/9/2011 9:50:35 PM

This was designed to hit Toyota because Toyota is a non-union company and makes products much, MUCH better than the unionized car companies (read: UAW/Government Motors).

2/9/2011 10:37:14 PM

Yeah...some conspiracy theories are creeping into the thread, and I'm not buying it, for the same reason I don't buy most conspiracy theories: they require too many active participants to stay quiet. We can't keep anything quiet. We've botched nearly every secret thing we've ever tried.

Far more likely, I think, that natural human stupidity ran its course when given the opportunity.

2/10/2011 12:42:49 AM

^and there had to be someone blamed...

2/10/2011 1:27:48 AM

Toyota got screwed by anti-foreigner bullshit

2/10/2011 1:45:27 AM

Quote :

"you have to think, why would such a specific driver error suddenly happen with one brand only, and only with certain cars produced during a certain period of that brand? that's just impossible."

Pedal misapplication occurs ungodly frequently. It is why all manufacturers installed lockouts to prevent you taking the car out of park until after you are pressing the brake. It re-trains the mind where the brake is every time you start the car. Doesn't solve the problem. People still drive their cars into gas stations, restaurants, crowds of people, etc.

What is telling, however, is how quick so many were to blame the electronics for events so rare they could only have been driver error. This is why we will never have self-driving cars, no matter how many lives they would save.

[Edited on February 10, 2011 at 10:31 AM. Reason : .,.]

2/10/2011 10:29:52 AM

Well by golly we cant never have no automated trains!! Aint no machine that can replace a person.

hold on a sec, got a text. *crashes train into station*

2/10/2011 10:34:20 AM

Quote :

" This is why we will never have self-driving cars, no matter how many lives they would save. "

2/10/2011 10:39:31 AM

Quote :

" they require too many active participants to stay quiet. We can't keep anything quiet. We've botched nearly every secret thing we've ever tried."

You and I agree on so much and yet....

I've tried explaining this to bona fide conspiracy theorists and they just shrug it off. That's what they want you to think! Doesn't the existence of Wikileaks pretty much destroy the possibility of any conspiracy? Unless....oh...my...god...Wikileaks is part of the conspiracy and only releasing the smokescreen to hide the REAL conspiracy!!!!

Quote :

"What is telling, however, is how quick so many were to blame the electronics for events so rare they could only have been driver error. This is why we will never have self-driving cars, no matter how many lives they would save. "

I think this could apply to the Airbus' reputation as well. How common are electrical failures vs. human error really?

[Edited on February 10, 2011 at 10:46 AM. Reason : .]

2/10/2011 10:45:35 AM

Quote :

"the problem was mechanical they said, i.e., most probably the sticky pedals and defective mats which would catch the pedals."

Interestingly, Toyota issued a recall on their floor mats about 6 months (going on memory here) prior to the whole hubbub about the acceleration problems. I took it seriously and got the new mat hooks because I'd had floor mat problems in my previous car and knew it could make one of the pedals stick (it was the brake for me in my previous car, unintended acceleration would have been easily dealt with since it was a stick shift).

Of course, my car was one of the two that Toyota didn't actually recall after the kerfuffle broke out so it was kinda moot.

Seriously, people need to pay attention to their recall notices.

2/13/2011 12:00:03 AM