Posted on 03/10/2010 6:36:28 AM PST by justlurking
Before he called 911, James Sikes says he reached down with his hand to loosen the "stuck" accelerator on his 2008 Toyota Prius, his other hand on the steering wheel. The pedal didn't move.
"My car can't slow down," he began when a California Highway Patrol dispatcher answered his call.
[...]
During the two 911 calls, Sikes ignored many of the dispatcher's questions, saying later that he had to put his phone on the seat to keep his hands on the wheel.
Leighann Parks, a 24-year-old dispatcher, repeatedly told him to throw the car into neutral but got no answers.
"He was very emotional, you could tell on the line he was panicked," Parks told reporters outside the CHP's El Cajon office. "I could only imagine being in his shoes and being that stressed."
Neibert told Sikes after the CHP caught up with him to shift to neutral but the driver shook his head no. Sikes told reporters he didn't go into neutral because he worried the car would flip.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
If you turned the key all the way to the point that the steering wheel locks, then you were a candidate for the Darwin awards.
You can shut off the ignition by turning the key to the point before the wheel locks.
The bad part is there are a LOT of morons like this guy on the road. TURN THE FRIGGIN” IGNITION OFF. Look for a place to land. Apply EMERGENCY BRAKE along with foot brake. Personally, I think it is a breach of cyber secuity. They are trying to kill us one at a time. :)
I hope it’s found out our messiah is behind this act.
Even if this guy panicked given the length of time he was
speeding down the road he would have come to himself and
knocked his car out of gear and cut the switch. This is one
big ass lie.
And how come there was no traffic surrounding that car through all this???
Toyota bashing seems to be from the same crowd terrified of AGW.
I actually had the same problem with my old car at that age too. Did the same thing you did, but after I restarted the car I was able to continue driving normally.
(a)The driver runs the risk of locking the steering wheel.
(b)The brakes will be MUCH harder to operate, especially with ABS.
Follow the dispatcher's instructions. Put the vehicle in Neutral and try for the shoulder as the vehicle coasts. Toyota has plenty of engines in the back room, and this whole thing is definitely on them.
Stayed tuned for the klown-boy's lawsuit, which, like so many colleagues on this thread, I suspect this is all about.
Do you know whether anybody checked this guy out? Is it possible that he is a union member, making another bad news of Toyota to bring it down to its knees? Of course, to force Toyota to be unionized. Perfect timing, isn’t it?
There is the possibility of the wheel locking, but generally, that's if you turn the key all the way to the point of being able to remove it - in some vehicles you even have to remove the key. It's my understanding the Pious has a button to turn it on or off. Not sure how the wheel lock function works on that type of vehicle.
The best thing to do for any vehicle is to familiarize yourself with it.
With all defference to your memory, I’m guessing that something else also happened to the car overloaded with teenagers goofing around - not just a movement of the gear selector.
If you still have your wits about you and it starts to rev too high, put it in the highest gear you’ve got. 5th or 6th in a manual or 3rd in an automatic.
Can’t wait to hear the logic behind your advice.
If you’d paid attention in Driver’s Ed you might remember those “What if” situations. I remembered when it happened to me while driving IN THE ALPS!
(BTW shifting into to Neutral is not the correct answer, as others have already pointed out, turning the ignition off is.)
I bet you don’t think about escape routes while driving either.
You are assuming a competent intelligent person was driving.
Something is wrong here...you can feel it...
Wrong on both counts.
Power brakes still work, they are just harder to push down to engage.
Also, no manufacturer is going to manufacture a car that would lock up the steering wheel if the key was turned off while it was engaged and rolling. Imagine the lawsuits as people said they accidently turned the key off or the engine started on fire OR as in these cases, the car overrevved.
Escatly...the power you need to use the breaks with no engine power is hugh.
What year was this? I had read that most (if not all) cars since the early 80’s were made with a safety feature that if you could even get the thing in park while moving over 10 MPH (and that was a difficulty in itself because the pin wouldn’t settle into the Park position while it was spinning), that it would just sling the pin back out and it would be idle in neutral.
The first thing Toyota is going to do is ask whether he is behind on payments or recently lost his job.
I suspect a lot of these incidents have those two issues in common.
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