Wow, Post #2 in the thread, and it looks like you called it!

Nah, it's all a witch hunt by me.

I totally fabricated the thousands of incidents.

It's amazing isn't it?

The ignorance in this thread, even after all the diagrams red posted, is amazing.

As far as this particular "victim's" story - we'll see.

(But I'll put my bet that it ends with "plea bargain," not "big cash settlement").

So, are you thinking that he rigged the brake lights to be on (as the cop noted) or was he standing on the gas and lightly touching the brake?

Who knows. Only thing for sure is this guy has a very shady past and lacks credibility.

My guess? He was standing on the gas. Even a low-budget scamster would know, though, that using enough brake pressure to give the brakes a nice burn is a nice touch.

Well if toyota would release black box info, we'd know.

Except that they FLATLY REFUSE to do so....

Interesting that the same law firm is representing this fellow as the family of the folks in the Lexus accident that sued Toyota last week in San Diego Superior Court. This guy says he is not suing...but his little "problem" sure helps the civil case the law firm is handling.

"...Doubters have asked why Sikes didn't put the car in neutral as a California Highway Patrol dispatcher and an officer repeatedly urged him to do.

Sikes said he considered going into neutral but worried he might go into reverse or flip.

"I had never played with this kind of transmission, especially when you're driving, and I was actually afraid to do that," he said Tuesday. "I was afraid to do anything out of the normal."

Toyota has said all Priuses are equipped with a computer system that cuts power to the wheels if the brake and gas pedals are depressed at the same time, as Sikes was doing.

It's tough for us to say if we're skeptical. I'm mystified in how it could happen with the brake override system," Don Esmond, senior vice president of automotive operations for Toyota Motor Sales, said Thursday.

Dan Edmunds, director of vehicle testing at Edmunds.com, an auto information Web site, said the brake-override system worked fine on his 2004 Prius at about 70 mph. He also shifted into neutral and reverse at those speeds,

"Yawn" he wrote Friday. "This was not difficult."..."


"...Toyota says the fail-safe and the engine are controlled by a central computer that contains two independent microprocessors that communicate and must agree with each other. If there's a disagreement, power would be cut to the wheels..."

"...Sikes came to a stop after a Highway Patrol officer blared instructions from a loudspeaker, telling him to push the brake pedal to the floor while applying the emergency brake. Sikes apparently did this, allowing him to slow the car to 50 mph and shut off the engine.

At one point during the 911 call, the dispatcher asks if he can press the ignition button for five seconds and she gets no response. Sikes said later that he struggled to hold the phone and keep his hands on the wheel..."

That is what I think. Obviously, anyone staging such an event would have to burn off some brake material. Best bet would be too stand on the gas and also ride the brake. Since we know that he drove like that for at least 20 minutes...riding the brakes would leave some convincing damage evidence without ever really endangering anyone.

No one would be stupid enough to drive a Prius...after all the recent news...and not read the owner's manual and figure out how to turn t off or put it into neutral.

Would that work? I've read that simlutaneously applying throttle and brakes on a Prius causes the computer to cut the motive force of the engine. So you'd just coast in a worst case scenario? (Assuming the computer/DBW system isn't faulty--if it is, then all bets are off as to what really happens as no one can seem to recreate unintended acceleration.)

What surprises me is the total lack of any technical insight (no Honda pun intended) or inquisition into this Toyota mess by the media. Every article blabbers on about the same superficial items. What really happens when you jump on both pedals at once at 90 mph? What really happens when you throw it into neutral at speed and your foot is buried on the loud pedal? What really happens when you throw it into reverse at speed? What really happens when you try to turn off the motor at speed? Try it with a Prius. Try it with whatever Lexus that CHP officer and his family died in down in San Diego. Which Toyota products, by model and model year, have those pedal boxes installed by that supposedly at fault American subcontractor? Which Toyota products have DBW systems? Those 52 people who died: in which types (models and years) of Toyotas did they die? Cross-reference that info to see what matches and what doesn't.

I'm surprised no one in the media seems to have tried to compile this story (at least not that I've seen or heard). I'm Joe Schmoe; I don't have the time or resources to go on some personal crusade for truth like this. I don't even have a Toyota. But were I some news reporter aspiring for a big story, I'd certainly rent out California Speedway and assemble a few late model Toyotas and try this stuff out to cut out some of the misinformation circulating around out there. (edit: only the Edmunds guy seems to have tried this--and not the 200 journalists out there writing articles in paper and the 'net?)

And, to complete this rant, what kind of idiot Toyota driver doesn't NOW have an algorithm of "last ditch stuff to do if I'm caught in this type of situation?" This Sykes dude from Tuesday claimed to have been too afraid to try to shift the car into neutral or turn off the motor while the CHP was alongside shouting out these suggestions? He didn't want to do anything he hadn't tried before. F'n idiot. Like trying the ONE thing he knows how to do (step on the brake) again and again and again is somehow going to magically work the 785th time he tries it? Figure out something NEW to try, ya moron. Like throwing the car into neutral is going to cause the thing to flip? Is the general public this Darwinianly stupid?

I would expect that touching the brake pedal would, as they say, kill the throttle (in proper operation)

so .... doing 90 MPH with the brake lights on is then rather curious.

Exactly. You'd think the people that bought toyotas and are just being defensive about all this would be smart enough to figure that out.

So the throttle cuts when you hit both pedals?

Oh?

Cop said the guys brakes were on and HE WAS NOT SLOWING DOWN.

Wow....eh?

The emergency brake was on...I cannot imagine that a Prius would go 90 unless he had it floored. Once he saw the trooper, he was trying to slow...and did....down to 50 and The trooper saw brake lights...because that what the fellow wanted him to see.

"...Sikes came to a stop after a Highway Patrol officer blared instructions from a loudspeaker, telling him to push the brake pedal to the floor while applying the emergency brake. Sikes apparently did this, allowing him to slow the car to 50 mph and shut off the engine."

Even if he shut the engine down...a light foot on the brake pedal (enough to turn on the brake lights)...would still take a while to slow from 90+ to 50.

The Prius doesn't work that way.

The brakes don't work like that.

The emergancy brake doesn't activate the brake lights. The hand break was applied after the officer came along side.

The COMPUTER controls everything here. The Prius doesn't work like a regular car. The brake pedal is not directly connected to the brakes, unless there is a full computer failure or a full power loss. In a regular car, you can lightly touch the brakes and juice the gas and burn out the brakes over time. The Prius, it is all computer controlled. A computer is supposed to take inputs from different systems and the decide what you are trying to do.

Computer control is distrubuted between different, non-redundant, computers. I haven't found information yet on how these different computers "talk" and how one disables the systems of the other. But I'm still looking.

NWS

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Best line; I'm not on TV look'n like a fucqen idiot cuz I dunno how to stop my fucqen car ...

No, he's on You Tube look'n like a fucqen idiot cuz he dunno how his fucqen car systems are designed.

He may as well drive a Pinto and use his Turrets syndrom to explain how it's not on fucqen fire from being fucqen rear-ended.

Sheesh, what a clown.

I am certainly aware of that...but I have driven a Prius quite a bit and guarantee I can duplicate the scene as described in a Prius...or most any auto. Lightly put on the parking brake to achieve some heat and wear...and gently ride the brake pedal for the brief period that the state trooper is behind me. One could certainly gently ride the brake pedal enough for brake lights..for quite a while...before an aerodynamic car slowed from over 90 to a stop. The guy had been driving like this for about half an hour at that speed...just since he called 911...who told him exactly what he should do (he chose not to comply). The trooper was only briefly behind him and spent most of the encounter time next to him trying to tell him what to do with a loudspeaker (after he did not do it when the 911 guy in the phone told him to) or in front of him getting into position to slow him down. He only needed brake lights for a few seconds to achieve the illusion.