Last week, Harrison Police Capt. Anthony Marraccini said he had no indication of driver error, after a 56 year old house keeper had driven her employer’s Prius into a wall. Wall and car were totaled. Airbags deployed, housekeeper was unharmed. Now, Marracini isn’t so sure anymore.
Yesterday, six Toyota technicians and two NHTSA inspectors descended on Harrison, NY, to inspect the Prius, which had been kept in a Harrison police impound. According to CNN, “two independent inspectors from a forensic technology company, hired by the Police Department, also were aiding the investigation.” There was no shortage of experts. Presence of congressional aides was not reported.
Toyota successfully downloaded data from the vehicle. After receiving their findings (which have not been made public), Capt. Anthony Marraccini said driver error “was a possibility,” the New York Post reports. According to the paper, “the police chief overseeing the investigation of a supposed runaway Prius reversed himself yesterday, saying human error may have caused the vehicle to crash into a stone wall.”
“The driver says the accelerator stuck,” reported NBC yesterday.
Without saying it out loud, Toyota intimates that all the housekeeper should have done is push the brakes.
Careful not to insult the customer, Toyota Motor Sales spokesman Wade Hoyt said: “in all of our hybrids, when you step on the brake pedal the engine automatically returns to idle, even if the accelerator pedal would be nailed to the floor.”
What about unintended acceleration? No data so far. But the New York Post headlines its report “Doubts accelerate over 2nd runaway-Prius story.”
Cue comments about single event upsets, tin whiskers, and Toyota mucking with the data. With the NHTSA, two independent inspectors, and an embarrassed police chief watching, it would take a lot of guts to pull a fast one.
Update: The Wallstreet Journal is (a tad belatedly) on the story and writes:
“The preliminary results of an investigation of a Toyota Prius accident in Harrison, N.Y., suggest driver error may have been to blame for the crash, two people familiar with the matter said. Based on information retrieved from the vehicle’s onboard computer systems, preliminary findings found that there was no application of the brakes and the throttle was open, according to these people.”
As much as I am enjoying the consumer terror over Toyotas (I sell Hyundais), in reality it is all BS. I mean, really, tin whiskers, ghosts in the machine, cosmic rays, all magically make Toyotas turn into Christine? Really??
How about the brakes, shifting to neutral, the parking brake??
The whole idea of a “runaway” Prius is laughable anyway. That’s like saying runaway Geo Metro. It’s not like these things are Porsches that can accelerate violently. I think most Prius owners would agree that there is no way for a Prius to take off like a rocket and terrify them into losing their senses.
Unfortunately, your scenario assumes that all drivers have nerves and composure, above some minimum level, which guarantees presence of mind and appropriate reaction.
BTW, a Ford selling Hyundais, I wonder if, somewhere, there is a Mr. Hyundai who sells Fords.
Unless Hyundai is not a family name, this is not beyond the realm of possibility (esp. if we don’t restrict this to your circle of friends, or the area where you live). And such is possible, because where I went to church as a boy, there was Ted Ford who worked for Chrysler and Ralph Chrysler who worked for Ford and they both knew each other for years.
…”I think most Prius owners would agree that there is no way for a Prius to take off like a rocket and terrify them into losing their senses”…
I would venture to say that is not true at all. When you nail the gas, you expect something to happen. When something happens that you don’t expect, you body’s reaction is quite different. As a kid, while cutting the grass with the lawn tractor, I had selected Reverse by mistake instead of Second. I was nearly thrown off! Being that my mind/body was fully expecting forward motion, the fact the I was going backward was very surprising. And Reverse was the same speed as second…about 3 mph, yet it seemed much faster. Perception (hate to use that word around here) plays a big part on your body’s reaction. Ever been on any of those Disney rides where the moving images are projected all around you? You are in a partially enclosed round thing on a track and suddenly the video speeds up like you are accelerating and fans on the side blow air on to you…you feel yourself being pushed into the back of the seat, but in reality, your speed has not changed at all…So I am not at all surprised that untrained people fall apart when they perceive their car to be “rocketing” ahead…in their mind it is…
These cars are already moving. It’s not like these people are sitting at a stoplight with their foot on the brake and all of a sudden the car takes off anyway. Unless the Prius is also magically downshifting (I know it is a CVT) to achieve maximum acceleration, at best it is going to gradually increase speed.
No one has been able to replicate the effect the drivers are describing, which most likely means it is driver error.
Anyway, the best way I see “driver error” being “indicated” is if there’s nothing wrong with the car that could have caused the behavior the driver claimed, and if there is something wrong with the driver and/or his account of the event.
Why this rapid-fire succession of highly-publicized Prius incidents in the midst of all this hulabaloo? Coincidence? I think not…maybe some Prius drivers out there are simply letting all this get to them, and it’s negatively influencing their driving habits.
Part of the problem is that if it’s another make, it’s not making the national news. If it’s Toyota, they report it.
Let’s get an Infiniti media feeding frenzy going:
http://wcbstv.com/topstories/car.into.house.2.1571600.html
Again, I’m sure it’s a driver error issue as was the one in Massachusetts, but you can see how you can start digging around the news and start to stitch together a story around a particular make. Just report the incidents for that make and ignore the others. I wonder if I can find another one.
This began making news yesterday…
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/03/18/car_slams_peabody_medical_building/
All up until it was reported the car was an Infiniti…
Interesting quote in that article:
Accidents involving older drivers prompted legislation on Beacon Hill to toughen the licensing requirements for senior motorists.
Traditionally, the AARP has fought to the death to prevent toughening of requirements and insurance rates for older drivers. Pedalgate may make these efforts problematic.
It should be noted that older folk generally have more money and turn out to vote in far larger numbers than any other demographic. Conversely, the young vote less and have the least amount of money than other demographics (note that there’s no AAYP: no one would show up to meetings or write cheques to fund them). This is one of the reasons why politicians pay a lot of attention to issues that matter to old people (social security, investment protection, crime) and diddly-squat to what matters to the young (employment, education, child services, sustainability).
AARP and “fought to the death” – two terms old people probably don’t want in proximity…
Keeping an eye on Google News I can’t help but noticing that the press echo on the Harrison findings is extremely subdued ….
Years ago, while at the drive by portion of a fast food restaurant, she pressed the accelerator on her Mercury Marquis instead of the brake. Naturally, thinking she had her foot on the brake, she pressed harder. Luckily, despite the fact that there was much damage to property, there was none to people.
However, my mother – being a very smart and honest old lady – knew that she was the one that screwed up….and she stated as such during the investigation. Guess those old, proper, southern ladies just aren’t smart like those “educated” Prius drivers, who would know to blame the machine, not the operator.
Makes me wonder about the majority of these claims.
Unfortunately, your scenario assumes that all drivers have nerves and composure, above some minimum level, which guarantees presence of mind and appropriate reaction.
Unfortunately, your scenario assumes that all drivers have nerves and composure, our drivers licensing laws don’t require any skill or ability above some minimum level, which guarantees, presence of mind and appropriate reaction, that any moron can get a license and that people are going to do stupid things while driving, like texting or pushing the wrong pedal.
There, fixed it for you
Word. That’s exactly what I was going to write too.
@Robert Walter:
I’ve always thought “Hyundai” was a made up name, designed to sound like Honda. There are two “Hyuns” in the Boston phonebook, both with Korean sounding first names, but no “Hyundais.”
Hyundai means “modern” in Korean.
While “hyundai” is a Korean word, if properly pronounced the word does not rhyme with “Sunday.” An American ad agency dreamed that one up. To their shame.
Even if Toyota’s have a UA problem, the majority of reported cases are going to be of people stomping the gas when they think its the brake. The driver is ALWAYS the most probable source of the problem.
Now that there’s attention to be had from having a bad Toyota, everybody with a histronic personality disorder and a Prius is thinking about driving their car into a brick wall so they can get their15 minutes.
I think this is just further evidence of my firm belief that automatic transmissions should be banned except for old people and people with a doctor’s note. If everyone drove manuals, not only would the amount of cell phone driving go down cause they wouldn’t have a spare hand, but people would have to have some a basic understanding of how their cars work. The fact that people don’t just pop these supposedly defective cars into neutral boggles my mind. It’d be muscle memory if people drove sticks.
That’s my King for a Day law, btw. All sticks, all the time. I think it would vastly improve the quality of driving in this country.
“Toyota successfully downloaded data from the vehicle”. Each story we have heard has Toyota, and Toyota alone, downloading the info from the cars in question. One mouse click and the info can be replaced. Until UA cars are quarantined (Toyota can’t get near them) and an independent firm downloads and analyses the data I will view all data and root cause provided by Toyota with a healthy degree of scepticism. We are talking $billions here, let’s not be naive.
Cue comments about single event upsets, tin whiskers, and Toyota mucking with the data.
I’ll take the “tin whisker” part…
Heaven forbid someone somewhere take one apart and properly analyize it for the existance of tin whiskers or even the propensity to grow them. Even having one in hand that may have exhibited the results of such a problem does not seem to be enough of an inspiration to check it out.
I am at a loss to understand why huge sums are being spent to finger-point and very little to eliminate some of the usual suspects.
Did it cross your mind that maybe boxes have been pulled and no whiskers have been found?
If you make an allegation, get ready to prove it. Someone could take the position it’s libel.
All the whisker faction needs to do is open some ECUs and look. If they haven’t, shame on them, lazy bunch. There are lawyers who want to collect $10b. Don’t you think they looked into the whisker theory?
Did it cross your mind that maybe boxes have been pulled and no whiskers have been found?
Toyota or NHTSA would have sung this from the treetops, don’t ya think? Right or wrong, their silence is interpreted as a “no, haven’t looked”.
I doubt I missed the press release where Toyota, Exponent, or NHTSA actually opened a throttle peddle or ECM and stated what was found, whiskers, soul patch or whatever on the circuit board(s).
All the whisker faction needs to do is open some ECUs and look.
I respectfully disagree. This is Toyota’s and NHTSA’s job.
Unfortunately, I have not received a contract from Toyota or NHTSA to do their testing for them and to my knowledge, nobody else has either.
As far as “looking”, I have no experience examining a circuit board for the propensity to have this condition. However, I’d expect to see the words “electron microscope” somewhere in the lab test procedures. Probably few of us interested in this line of research into the problem have one.
How many brains should it take? Folks just have to ask the right questions. Toyota with their cute little SMART teams can afford to go around the country acting so sure of themselves considering that currently they are controlling both the questions and the answers.
NASA is coming on board and hopefully will have the stature to make things happen by simply pointing out that there need to be adequate “black boxes” on all new vehicles to keep track of all the “fly-by-wire” systems increasingly used to keep engine power, fuel economy and emissions control competitive. Especially considering that Stability Control Systems will be mandatory in two more years. “Safety Systems” such as ABS, Traction Control and Stability Control all depend on the same basic hardware items and are assumed to be good things but recent events have shown that potentially great harm as well as potentially great good can result. A lot of harm can slide under the radar in the general context of increasing overall safety, much of which might simply be due to over-zealous police activity anyway. Local police are under lots of pressure to keep their numbers up to justify continuing to receive big federal handouts. Lots of drivers have simply given up partying, at least while drinking, and are staying at home instead.
The model for these “black box systems” is found in the airline industry, with latest models of jet transports recording over 700 channels of data at routinely twice/second, with the rate increased during periods of rapid change, for periods of 17-25 hours. These data are easily studied by third party computers and software. Car companies like Toyota would not have to be anywhere around. Toyota’s refusal to share data, claiming that there is only one “special computer” in the country capable of accessing this data is pathetic anyway.
Toyota claims that they have never encountered any defects in their “electronics systems” and therefore they are confident that such defects do not exist and apparently this has played well enough with NHSTA but not with others. Toyota has tried to pass things off as being due to such things as gas pedal entrapment under floor mats or throttle stickiness which supposedly can be cured by inserting a magic metal shim. Then to make absolutely sure that they are covered, they install a “software fix” so that the applying the brake is sure to disengage the throttle if it depressed, while protesting that the brakes in the normal course of driving are strong enough to over-power the throttle every time anyway. Toyota has the position that they have never encountered UA (Unintended Acceleration) not due to (or at least explainable by) some simple mechanical factor as described. Many drivers report simultaneous UA and loss of brakes and this passed off by Toyota as driver error, with the driver mistakenly pressing down the gas pedal believing that he is pressing the brake pedal.
UA with or without loss of brakes is supposedly rare but the figures are difficult to evaluate. There is the immediate problem of data collection and issues of self-reporting. Many drivers might not have recognized it for what it is, or simply failed to report it, thinking they would not be believed or fearing Toyota’s well rehearsed counter-attack on those reporting these defects. Many drivers experiencing such defects might be dead, having perished in single car accidents with the police declaring that they must have gone to sleep, or suffered from some medical condition, or merely been driving dangerously in the first place.
NASA can stimulate the one study appropriate to study these things. Many drivers with vehicles supposedly repaired by Toyota report continuing problems with UA and loss of brakes. Thus we have a good population of vehicles to study, those reported to have a higher incidence of defects. Many of these vehicles should be fitted with adequate “black box” systems, collecting data from the large numbers of sensors and command modules already on board. For example if something suspicious happens the driver could harvest the data immediately by down-loading it to a laptop computer via a USB cable or by merely swapping out a data card such as are used in digital cameras, without disturbing the data remaining in a large data buffer on board.
Web cams are dirt cheap and widely available. One pointed toward the driver’s feet and tied in with the other data on the “black box” would leave little room for disagreement about where the driver was pressing with his feet.