Shift to neutral if your accelerator sticks
My 2004 Toyota Corolla is not part of Toyota’s current sudden acceleration trouble, but any vehicle can get a stuck accelerator and if you drive a car you need to know how to safely stop your vehicle. Drivers of manual transmission vehicles it is ordinary to shift to neutral. But all too often this is the story we hear:
For 30 miles, [James] Sikes said, he swerved in and out of traffic, narrowly missing a big rig and trying desperately to slow the vehicle down, at one point reaching down with his hand to pull back on the gas pedal. The brakes were useless.
“I was laying on the brakes,” Sikes said, “but it wasn’t slowing down.”
The “nerve-wracking” experience, he said, ended when a CHP officer, responding to his 911 call, instructed him through a loudspeaker to apply his emergency brake in tandem with the brake pedal. Sikes pressed down, hard. “My bottom wasn’t even on the seat,” he said.
When the Prius, which had reached 90 mph, dropped to about 50 mph, Sikes turned off the engine and coasted to a stop. There was nothing else he could have done to stop the car, Sikes said. [LA Times]
Except there was something else he could have done, reach over and shift the transmission to neutral.
The following video from Consumer Reports illustrates the issue:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoIIT0WJS4s
If you drive a vehicle, please be sure you know how to stop it safely.
– Steve Patterson
These stories always amaze me. Manual, automatic – doesn't matter, just shift the dang thing into neutral! DUH!
I don't know how it works with the Prius or other “keyless” ignition-style cars, but why didn't the guy just shut the car off to begin with either?
If you turn on your garbage disposal and there's a spoon down in there, do you run around and panic and scream like a little girl, or do you just TURN IT OFF? If your wasing machine starts banging around from an unbalanced load, do you wet your pants and call 911, or do you just TURN IT OFF?
I think all these people this happens to should be taking a driver's Ed class before returning to the road!
This is how you shift into neutral with the Prius according to a website:
“The car must be in the ready mode, and instead of just tapping the joystick as one does to put it in reverse or drive, tap and hold it on neutral for a second or so.”
A panicked non-technical driver would probably never figure out how to get that car into neutral. Most other cars, throw that shifter into any other setting and you'll probably start slowing down.
Shifting to nuetral does nothing.
When Windows has crashed, does clicking your mouse do anything?
The Synergy Drive (all Toyota hybrids use it) is a drive-by-wire system with no direct mechanical connection between the engine and the engine controls: both the gas pedal/accelerator and the gearshift lever in an HSD car merely send electrical signals to a control computer.
I'd agree on my first reaction. If this is an electrical problem they simply aren't admitting, then shifting in a failed electrical system won't necessarily stop the car. I'm no engineer, but I'd imagine if someone were in the position of near-death for over 20 miles, they'd eventually have tried this and it would have failed.
…but wait it gets better!
The regenerative brakes in an HSD system absorb a significant amount of the normal braking load, so the conventional brakes on HSD vehicles are undersized compared to brakes on a conventional car of similar mass.
So there you have it. A software or electrical glitch could totally make a Prius accelerate out of control, the brakes would barely function during that mode of operation and you will not be able to shift into neutral. Other than that it's a great car.
Full disclosure:
I'm totally quoting an old wikipedia article that I ran across last year because I was really hot to buy a Prius. Until I found out about this HSD system Toyota uses. I bought another brand for this very reason.
I'm not saying that Toyota does not have problems, however, I do not trust the gentleman in the latest incident as far as I could throw him. He strikes me as either an opportunist or inept, maybe both.
Regardless of what your thoughts on the situation are, any driver should know how their vehicle works. READ THE MANUAL. Yes a Prius is different. But if one had read the manual, they would know to hold the gear selector to the left for a moment to engage neutral or to depress the engine start button for a couple seconds to kill the engine.
My major qualm with all drivers is that no one really drives anymore. We all point and shoot with automatic transmission cars while chatting on the cellphone, not looking beyond the tip of the nose. Notice how none of the unintended acceleration cases were with manual cars? We are disconnected from our cars which are potentially deadly tools if not used correctly. There are reasons for having an automatic, but I believe as a society we have become complacent and disengaged. How many drivers cannot use a stick or parallel park? We need to seriously modify the licensing system and ensure that drivers have the proper skills.
To conclude, I do believe that Toyota has produced some potentially dangerous products that have injured people. However, considering the media feeding frenzy, I would speculate that many of the newer incidents are similar to the Audi 5000 fiasco of the 80's. The NHTSA concluded that pedal misapplication was to blame, in spite of what the media had been claiming. Consumers and the media smell blood in the water and it only serves to exacerbate the problem.
Exactly, if you drive a non-conventional car such as a Prius you need to assume responsibly to know how to operate it safely.
Amen. My only quibble is singling out Toyota as the only manufacturer producing potentially-dangerous vehicles – they just've become the current poster child. The use of push-button start is expanding across the industry, as are computerized interfaces for more and more functions, like transmissions. Technology can be great when it works properly, but everyone needs to know how to reboot at 55 mph if they're going to rely on Hal's progeny . . .
EXACTLY. I'm always reminded of George Carlin's skit on SAABs. “Just because you bought a “safe car” doesn't excuse you from learning how to DRIVE THE THING!”
Very few people today I think, actually know how to “drive”. it's just pushing buttons and operating a game controller. And it's only getting worse – you mentioned parallel parking; apparently so few people can do that now, there are now cars on the market that do it FOR YOU!
But even reading your owners manual – have you looked a modern OM lately? it's about 99% safety disclaimers and legaleze. QUITE a bit different than say, the manuals to my 50's-60's VW's which go into GREAT DETAIL on every single system and how to maintain them yourself, and even specify wear tolerances out to you. You know, back when people FIXED things and didn't just throw them away.
Something does need to change at the fundamental level in this country with our licencing system. If we borrow anything from those evil Socialist European countries, it should be their driver training and licencing model. MANDATORY training classes for everyone, tiered licencing for even private drivers, renewal testing, and it should cost way, WAY more to get your licence in the 1st place.
Oh well, when the Zombie Apocalypse comes, all you chumps with your newfangled “transistorized” cars will be dead meat, and my friends and I will be cruizing around in our VW Microbus / battlebuses blastin' heads off the undead with our sawed off shotguns through the safari windows. 😉
Regrading turning the engine off on most cars, most recommendations I have seen say not to do this because this will disengage your power steering and make the car very difficult to control.
I would argue that any healthy adult could steer a car without P/S. As long as the car is going over, say 15 mph, it will only be slightly more difficult to turn. However, turning off the engine would only give you a couple opportunities to use the brakes before they become completely manual. Still, a healthy adult should be able to brake if need be.
As dangerous as I think it is, hyper-milers turn their cars off all the time. Although they are anticipating the change, they still haven't killed anyone as far as I know.
Most cars don't have keyless, pushbutton ignitions, they have keys that operate a combination ignition switch and steering column interlock. Turn off the ignition and you lock the steering column. It's not that you don't have power steering, you don't have ANY steering, which is why it's advised against, strongly . . .
Hyper-milers get away with it all the time. Turn the key to the mid point, where the battery is still on, not to the full off position. The steering wheel shouldn't lock.
Hyper-milers practice this on daily basis. Joe or Jane Average Driver, in a panic situation, is more likely to go too far, especially if they have a manual transmission (I guess I'm forgetting that most automatics have to be in Park before you can lock the steering wheel).
True, at least on VW's and the Honda I've owned – the transmission must be in PARK before the key can be fully turned to the LOCK position (and removed).
I would assume that even the rare & endangered stick-shift has some kind of similar safety interlock.
“Are Toyota Priuses, or media reports, out of control?” http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/autos/are…
“In the first 10 weeks of this year, 272 complaints have been filed nationwide for speed-control problems with the Prius, according to an Associated Press analysis of unverified complaints received by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. By comparison, only 74 complaints were filed in all of last year, and just eight the year before that.”
“For problems with the brakes, rather than the gas, the figures are even more stark: 1,816 filed so far this year vs. just 90 in all of 2009 and fewer than 20 in every other year of the past decade. . . . It's doubtful the Priuses of the past two years suddenly became more dangerous than those made in years past.”
I think many of us (including myself when first commenting) didn't read the entire article. Or, maybe the article has been updated.
Below it gives the reasons this guy feared turning the car off and also feared putting the car in neutral. I'd imagine in the regular cars, the fear about neutral shifting might not exist…but because it was a Prius, which is mechanically different from regular cars, I can imagine this fear being valid when your car is going 90 miles an hour…I sure wouldn't want to end up in reverse!
—————– From the article:
At the Toyota dealer in El Cajon where he went to pick up a loaner car, Sikes said he was still a little shaken by the incident. A longtime owner of Toyotas, he said the Prius had just received a maintenance check and appeared to be fine.
When the accelerator stuck, he said he weighed all his options. He feared turning the car off in the middle of traffic, expecting the steering wheel to lock. If he shifted into neutral, he worried that it would slip into reverse. The floor mat, he said, wasn't interfering with the gas pedal.
It is amazing how people don't know how to operate a gear shift lever…I think this guy is perpetrating a hoax.
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