[chrisser]

Folks, shift into neutral, move over to the side of the road and press on the brakes during the process

The Prius has a shift-by-wire system. The gearshift selector merely tells the PCM what gear is desired, and servo motors in the tranaxle performe the actual operation.

It seems conceivable that if the vehicle control systems are ignoring the driver inputs from the electronic accelerator pedal, they could also be ignoring the driver inputs from the electronic gear selector.

Here's a PDF from Toyota: https://techinfo.toyota.com/techInfoPortal/staticcontent/en/techinfo/html/prelogin/docs/2ndprius.pdf

"Electronic Gearshift Selector

The Prius elecronic gearshift selector is a newly developed momentary select shift-by-wire system that engages the transaxle in Reverse, Neutral, Drive, or engine Brake modes."

[DoughtyOne]

Then Chrisser, it does sound as if it could be possible for the electronic system to have been faulty. I do still submit that in the midst of such an event, a lot of folks would be stumped as to what to do, shifting into neutral not being considered.

Try asking your wife or a few of your friends what they would do if their gas peddle stuck. Most will say press on the brake real hard and try to stop. I tried this on a friend and they didn’t think of putting the car in neutral.

[GraceG]

They need a kill switch that kills the electric Motor and the gas engine in the prius that won’t re-set unless the car is in park and they key is cycled a few times.