You know, there is only one endemic flaw to modern automotive brakes: you have to push the brake pedal down for them to work. But I digress.
Have you noticed that the reports of out-of-control Toyotas have mostly stopped? Perhaps the main reason is that the highest profile cases are all well-known now as simply pure unmitigated lies. The public has now become inured to the fact that most of these "Sudden Unintended Acceleration" stories are blown fabrications bloviated into existence by the lamestream media, rich lawyers, greedy would-be plaintiffs, "victims" who want to be absolved of their responsibility for pushing on the wrong pedal, and government bureaucrats aiming to increase their regulatory penetration of the automotive industry and to make the waters more hospitable for Government Motors (GM).
Cases in point:
- Lawsuit-lotto hopeful James Sikes of California, who went on the televised 25-mile joy ride
- Gloria Rosel, the house keeper who drove the Prius into a wall in New York
- Myrna Marseille swore she was standing on the brake pedal of her 2009 Toyota Camry when it crashed into the Sheboygan Falls YMCA on March 29
All of the above were found to be 'driver error' (although Sikes' was in reality just a hoax).
Since then, reports have tailed off and almost stopped. Was it magic that stopped the daily out-of-control Toyotas, or was it the fact that government police have -- mostly -- finally admitted the real cause (driver error) of these crashes? Did it have anything to do with the corrollary that, as a result, potential 'victims' hoping to get off scot free with a chance at a lawsuit lotto win began to understand the party was over? My guess is it wasn't magic.
Hmmmm... it is annoying to see it took government cops almost a year longer than it took skeptics to figure out the truth.
A stuck pedal does not drive you into the wall while the "victim" was 'pushing the brake pedal to the floor'. Neither does a stuck floor mat. A foot stuck on the long skinny pedal does though.
I have owned many powerful and fast cars in my lifetime, but not a single one of them can accelerate when the brakes are firmly applied. Owners of older muscle cars can attest to this: pressing on the brakes to lock up the front wheels while flooring the accelerator is a 'powerbrake'. It's how we hot rodders raise clouds of rubber-and-asphalt smoke when showing off (doing "burnouts").
The brakes on a Prius are *better* than those on those old muscle cars, and their little motors are lucky to put out about a third of the power.
Brakes against the motor? Don't make me laugh. The brakes will win every time.
And yes, it works when the cars is already at speed, also. If your accelerator really is stuck, you are in danger only until you realize it is -- a realization that should set in within three or so seconds with a *good* driver. It is a truly rare event that a stuck pedal -- like a really stuck pedal, not someone mashing the wrong pedal -- causes a crash that otherwise would not have happened. These crashes usually happen within 3 seconds of the pedal getting stuck, before a driver recognizes the problem.
The brakes will haul down that same muscle car from 80 with the gas pedal floored with little trouble.
Sudden Unintended Acceleration is a hoax now as much as it was with the Audi twenty years ago. The government agencies that are "investigating" these accidents aren't helping anyone and in fact are impeding the market's ability to "cure" itself. Abolish the NHTSA, abolish all the other federal regulatory bodies that meddle in the automotive business, move liability torts into private arbitration and mediation services, and let the market work as it should.
Sudden, Unintended Acceleration: Remember, if you heard it from the lamestream media, it's probably false.
2011-02-18 UPDATE: Another good article I discovered recently on this topic is the one by John Cook over at Gawker.com.
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