Hmmm: Stupid Drivers Mainly at Fault in Toyota Accidents?

All that hysteria about Toyota vehicles looks more and more as if driver error was the problem. Or over-eager lawyers.

Where does Toyota go to get their reputation back?

The U.S. Department of Transportation has analyzed dozens of data recorders from Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles involved in accidents blamed on sudden acceleration and found that at the time of the crashes, throttles were wide open and the brakes were not engaged, people familiar with the findings said.

The results suggest that some drivers who said their Toyota and Lexus vehicles surged out of control were mistakenly flooring the accelerator when they intended to jam on the brakes. But the findings don't exonerate Toyota from two known issues blamed for sudden acceleration in its vehicles: sticky accelerator pedals and floor mats that can trap accelerator pedals to the floor.

The findings by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration involve a sample of reports in which a driver of a Toyota vehicle said the brakes were depressed but failed to stop the car from accelerating and ultimately crashing.

The data recorders analyzed by NHTSA were selected by the agency, not Toyota, based on complaints the drivers had filed with the government.

The findings are consistent with a 1989 government-sponsored study that blamed similar driver mistakes for a rash of sudden-acceleration reports involving Audi 5000 sedans.

The Toyota findings, which haven't been released by NHTSA, support Toyota's position that sudden-acceleration reports involving its vehicles weren't caused by electronic glitches in computer-controlled throttle systems, as some safety advocates and plaintiffs' attorneys have alleged. More than 100 people have sued the auto maker claiming crashes were the result of faulty electronics.

Don't expect these findings to receive anywhere near the publicity the original reports got.

Another Runaway Prius Incident Now Appears Bogus

This incident occurred a day after the now discredited "runaway" Prius story in San Diego. It may not be a staged stunt like that, but rather driver error.

The investigation of a Toyota Prius accident in Harrison, N.Y., suggests driver error may have been to blame, after federal safety regulators said the brakes had not been applied and the throttle was "wide open," the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

The driver, a 56-year-old housekeeper, told the police that the car accelerated as she drove down her employer's driveway March 9 and hit a stone wall across the street. The driver said she believed she had applied full force to the brakes, according to the police.

Based on information retrieved from the vehicle's onboard computer systems, a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration spokeswoman said: "There was no application of the brakes and the throttle was fully open."

Toyota downloaded data from the vehicle Wednesday, but said a fail-safe system would have prevented such an accident.

Funny how these runaway Prius incidents suddenly stopped, isn't it?

Some Prius Problems Psychological?

Very interesting. No idea if this guy has any connections to Toyota, but it's an curious angle.

Reports of sudden acceleration in the Toyota Prius have spiked across the country. But that doesn't mean there's an epidemic of bad gas pedals in the popular hybrid.

Experts on consumer psychology say Toyota's relentless attention since the fall makes it much more likely that drivers will mistake anything unexpected for actual danger.

"When people expect problems, they're more likely to find them," said Lars Perner, professor of clinical marketing at the University of Southern California.

In just 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.

Only 74 complaints were filed last year, and eight the year before that.

Even stranger are problems with the brakes, rather than the gas: 1,816 this year, versus 90 in 2009 and fewer than 20 every other year of the last decade. Toyota recalled 440,000 Priuses because its anti-lock brakes seemed to fail momentarily on bumpy roads.

This week came one of the most high-profile Toyota cases: A man driving on a Southern California freeway said his 2008 Prius reached 94 mph before a patrol officer helped him bring it to a stop.

Investigators are looking at that and a New York case, and authorities have questioned either's legitimacy.

While this theory may have some merit, it could well be problems are far more likely as these Priuses gain more wear and tear and higher mileage. Whatever the case, Toyota's got a big problem on their hands and are sure to face lawsuits totaling billions.

The Death of the Prius

Automakers are starting to find out that building vehicles which rely on materials for power that are rarer then the current source of power may not not exactly work out for them. In other words, making hybrid vehicles which run on electricity with no visible means of support may prove to be a dead end or at least a very costly one.

The Prius hybrid automobile is popular for its fuel efficiency, but its electric motor and battery guzzle rare earth metals, a little-known class of elements found in a wide range of gadgets and consumer goods.

That makes Toyota's market-leading gasoline-electric hybrid car and other similar vehicles vulnerable to a supply crunch predicted by experts as China, the world's dominant rare earths producer, limits exports while global demand swells.

Sort of funny, too, which natural resources are evil while others are okay to strip away from Mother Earth as long as they mesh with the liberal enviro-wacko philosophy.

So just like rushing to embrace ethanol has led to higher food prices and increased starvation in other parts of the world due to food sources being diverted to make energy, so too it looks like this rush to embrace hybrids will only lead to higher automobile prices along with depletion of other resources. The higher vehicle prices don't bother the enviromental crowd--they would just as soon all automobiles would dissappear and everybody be reduced to walking or riding a bike--but I bet they are tying themselves in knots trying to explain why oil is bad but these so-called rare earth minerals are okay.

Don't forget, part of the pending Cap and Trade legislation, which passed out of the House and is now waiting in the Senate for a vote, imposes mandates for just such vehicles and puts other sanctions on automakers in regards to what kind of vehicles they can produce and that you can buy.