Posted on 03/08/2010 6:42:10 PM PST by ButThreeLeftsDo
California Highway Patrol officers say their patrol car acted as a brake for a Toyota Prius with a stuck accelerator Monday.
The car, headed eastbound on Interstate 8, was going at a high rate of speed because the accelerator was stuck, according to CHP spokesperson Brian Pennings.
The patrol car moved in front of the Prius and engaged its brakes to bring the Prius to a stop, according to CHP.
The car eventually stopped on the highway near the La Posta Bridge in the area of the Golden Acorn Casino.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcsandiego.com ...
“and turn the ignition OFF!”
You lose your beakes!
Yes, but most of them have installed a line brake (holds the front brakes, but allows the rears to spin). Drag racers have used them for years for the burnout to heat the tires.
send car for exoticism!!!
Not the best thing to do. turning it off you can’t steer much because the wheel will lock, and turning off the care takes away power steering and power braking. Better to put in neutral and slowly apply the parking break, and if you have to slow down faster than that, you’ve got to try to use the curb or run the car up against a divider - better side damage than dying.
“Let me know when you get an answer to that one.”
Apparently it engages an “engine braking” mode, similar to the effect one might get by downshifting a normal automatic or manual transmission. Of couse, if the electronics have gone haywire, who knows whether it would have any effect either?
I still have trouble believing that Toyota’s huge engineering team wouldn’t have worked in sufficient fail-safes in these systems that all these systems could fail at once.
I don’t buy it. This guy is just looking to sue, or for a new car.
My first car was a 1967 Nova with a 327 and a column-shifted 2-speed power-glide. We removed the column shifter, but not the ring and gear indicator and installed a floor shifter. Even in 1967, there was a neutral safety switch to keep you from starting the car in anything but park or neutral. We left that attached to the ring on the column. If you bumped the column ring out of park or neutral, you couldn't start the car, regardless of what position the floor shifter was in.
We really didn't plan it. The new shifter didn't have a mount for the safety switch, so we just left it alone. Took us about 30 minutes one day, while cussing up a storm, to figure out why the car didn't start, to realize what was going on. We'd bumped the ring accidentally while working on the car.
Actually, B mode is engine braking; using the compression of the gas engine to slow the car down. You dump energy through the engine instead of the brakes. The intent is to slow the car on long descents. Its used because I've heard that when your braking down long hills in a hybrid design like this, prolonged periods of non "B" mode braking will cook the tiny undersized brakes on these cars.
Right. I did.
If he was so calm, why didn’t he put the damn thing in Neutral. That will work every time.
Just so you know, Priuses don’t have clutches, they’re automatic. Different ballgame.
Also the steering wheel only locks AFTER you make a turn. Locked steering wheel would still be better than keeping increasing speed till I hit something.
Same as putting my stick shift in a lower gear when going down a steep hill or downshifting to second just before I come to a stop.
Right. Also, HE called the cops - THEY didn't "catch" him.
He did, it didn’t do anything. The “gear shift” is just a switch mechanism that attaches to the chip that runs the transmission. If the chip is malfunctioning, “shifting” to neutral DOES NOTHING.
Like I said, this guy was a trained Highway Patrol officer, not some idiot who didn’t know how to drive. There have been too many other instances where people reported the same thing, all the things that are supposed to work didn’t. The common factor is they are all controlled by a computer chip.
Very similar, although much more complicated because of the small brake design and hybrid engines.
Prius were designed almost exclusively for city driving on flat roads. They perform like crap in the mountains.
I don’t understand why people are not turning the IGNITION off. Don’t Toyotas have keys? Ignitions?
How could you be in worse trouble turning the ignition off than you would going 90 mph? That doesn’t make sense. No gasoline, voila’.
Which is probably why I have never seen one. I live in the mountains.
How could you be in worse trouble turning the ignition off than you would going 90 mph? That doesn’t make sense. No gasoline, voila’.
Well, by going 90 MPH and having no steering... and running into a concrete abutment... perhaps... LOL ...
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