

Toyota plans 3.8M vehicles recall. 2007-2010 Camry, 2004-2009 Prius... - yu
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE58S69820090930

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PStamatiou
"Before the crash, a passenger in the car had called 911 and told dispatchers
that the accelerator was stuck and the car had reached 120 miles per hour (193
km per hour).

The recall will cover the Camry and Avalon sedans, the Prius hybrid, the
Tacoma and Tundra pickup trucks and luxury Lexus models, the IS250 and the
IS350 as well as the ES350."

Yikes that's tragic. I am not familiar with floormats in Toyotas and what they
might look like in comparison to the accelerator pedal, but I was taught in
driver's ed and at the racetrack where I run my car that should you ever run
into a situation where your pedal gets stuck there are a few things you should
do (which I know might not be apparent during a panic situation):

1) put your foot under the gas pedal and try to lift it up. never attempt to
crawl down there to figure it out

2) turn off the ignition. you can safely brake and steer to safety without
power. just takes a bit of force as you don't have power brakes/steering..

3) worst case scenario put it in neutral. engine will rev to hell without load
and potentially get damaged but at least you can control the car safely and
get to safety/pull over.

~~~
Devilboy
_turn off the ignition_

Careful - a kid recently crashed into oncoming traffic here in Sydney because
his car locked the steering wheel when he turned the key. (He was trying to
save fuel by coasting.) I know my car does the same thing.

~~~
radu_floricica
Yup, tried it once at low speed, same effect. Technically if you only cut the
power but don't turn the key all the way down, it won't lock. But the chances
of being that careful in this situation are null.

I'm surprised simply braking doesn't work. AFAIK, break power should be
(much?) greater then engine power.

~~~
electromagnetic
It'll definitely slow you down, but it might not last long. If I was in that
situation I'd definitely try unsticking the gas pedal first. I'd also say be
prepared to cut your ignition, because if your brake pads fail (brake pads are
designed to cool down between use and I'm not sure what prolonged heating
would do to them, I know when your callipers get stuck you can wear out the
pad and the router pretty quickly) you're going to be up shit creek without an
anchor.

I'd always suggest trying to slow (by whatever means necessary) before turning
your ignition off. Probably #1 would be to unstick the gas pedal, #2 would be
to put it into neutral, #3 would be brake like a nut and #4 would be turn off
the ignition (if you can't get it into neutral for some mysterious reason, or
if you stopped safely of course). In reality your ignition really shouldn't be
turned off until you've got your parking/hand brake on, turning it off while
driving is dangerous, especially if you're on a highway.

~~~
laut
Very complicated in an automatic transmission car it seems. Very simple in a
manual transmission car. You just press the clutch. You could even stop and
start again and drive around with a little abuse of the clutch pedal.

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tptacek
I'm sure it's bad and all, but don't recalls happen for car models all the
time? BMW "recalled" my car a bunch of times; what it meant was, if I didn't
get the car to the shop for a free repair, I'd have a harder time suing them
if the (I think it was the) gas pump caused the car to explode.

~~~
PStamatiou
I think the story here was that it was 3.8 million cars. That's high enough to
get it into the top 10 car recalls, of all time. Top is probably the 10+
million cruise control switch issue Ford had to recall on virtually all 1993+
cars.

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jrockway
I don't drive, so I am curious: what is the effect of pressing the brake and
the accelerator at the same time?

~~~
gstar
That'll slow the car down, and bring it to a stop if the brakes are in good
condition.

It's really simple to recover from a jammed open throttle (it's happened to
me) - and I think it's the kind of thing that ought to be taught in driving
lessons.

You have heaps of options, either knock the car into neutral, turn off the
ignition (before the steering lock), stand on the clutch (if it's manual),
stand on the brakes or as a very last option gently start to apply the parking
brake.

Forgive my ignorance, but is a "state trooper" a cop? I can't believe an off
duty cop would let the car get up to almost 120mph. Aren't they trained?

~~~
jrockway
Thanks for the answer. This is what I would have guessed. (The first thing I
would try if my car was gaining speed too quickly would be the brakes.)

 _Forgive my ignorance, but is a "state trooper" a cop?_

Yes.

 _I can't believe an off duty cop would let the car get up to almost 120mph.
Aren't they trained?_

I guess everyone can panic when something that they consider safe starts going
out of control. You'd think cops would be trained to handle this, considering
they are in stressful situations with a loaded handgun everyday.

I have a feeling that we are not getting the whole story here.

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_ck_
I wonder how many people were labeled as crazy, "got their license at sears"
or drunk before this was taken seriously? (note how it goes back to 2004)

