Don't know what FWIW means, but Toyota had a photo of the floor mat over the accelerator. Their narrative was that as my wife tried to brake, that caused the mat to depress the accelerator peddle. Which is of course, BS because my wife at 5'0" could not move that mat up and over the accelerator. Also to their point of the brake pressing the mat onto the accelerator. Depressed with full force, that brake peddle was a full 3-4" off the floor.

 

FWIW = For What It's Worth

 

OK. Well it's taken me years to get the emoticons I think they're called. Thanks.

 

I found this to be interesting, although it's talking about GM.

You don't have to worry about buying a car with a data collection device, your GM has one. In fact, GM has been putting black boxes in cars for years -- a fact many people don't even know. An article (no longer online) from USA Today (11/23/99) detailed the matter:

The module, part of the air bag sensing system, stores information in the few seconds before a car sensor identifies a crash and fires the air bags. The data includes the speed of the car, whether the driver was wearing a seat belt, when an air bag deployed and whether the driver used the brakes.

GM has quietly installed different versions of the sensing system on some cars throughout the 1990s, but the modules have become more sophisticated over time. Their existence became public in a paper written by GM and government engineers and presented at a conference last month.

 

Jimmy,

Toyota does the same thing. It's in the manual on our cars that Toyota will only share this information to the police and insurance companies....yeah, right.....

 

I'm getting lost here and maybe I'm very naive, but who else would want to get computer data from the crash, besides police and insurance company that would benefit them and hurt me?
I think the black box is a good thing by protecting the driver from blame, if it's not his fault, by blaming the bad driver if it's his fault, possibly cutting on frivolous law suits, where the person causes accident and blames everybody else and increase safety of the cars in the future. There is no doubt in my mind black boxes in airplanes improved air safety for all flying public and similar results should be with cars.
And let's not forget most important thing, this whole issue does not exist until the car is involved in the accident and therefore hopefully won't affect too many people to begin with.

 

The concern that has been voiced in the past is that the information in the 'black box' could be used outside of its intended purposes. ie. pulled over on the highway, officer plugs in a reader and knows what speed you have been going in the last xx minutes, how hard you accelerated etc.

 

"foot on wrong pedal" means exactly what it says. The driver may intend to press the brake pedal, but in a moment of panic, actually does press the gas pedal. It is surprisingly common. I have done it myself, in another vehicle.

Very nearly EVERY driver that does this says something to the effect of "I didn't do that", followed by "That's not possible." They are wrong. It is possible, and people actually do it without realizing that they are doing it. After I did it, I didn't believe it at first. It wasn't until after I reviewed the events in my head, that I realized what I had done.

The important thing to know is: When the brake pedal goes to the floor.... it probably is not the brake pedal. Lift your foot, move to the left, and try again. You might still be able to avoid the collision.

 

If this is in reference to my post, then you misunderstood it. The brake peddle didn't go to the floor. Toyota did not say that her, "foot was on the wrong peddle" probably because she burned out the brakes getting the Prius stopped. Yep. The left front brake was on fire and our good fortune she got the car stopped in front of a couple of elderly men one of whom had a fire extinguisher in his house.

I would have challenged Toyota's assumption because I got into the Prius after my wife (I was on my bike, so I was about 10-15 minutes behind her) and started the car. If the mat was over the accelerator as they claimed causing the car to take off on her then I assume the engine would have gone to full race again, which it did not do.

 

At age 68 I have no problems disclosing a few things.

A number of years ago, just shortly after the introduction of the Mazda miata, I test drove one at the dealer and had an instance of unintended acceleration. The dealer had installed temporary cardboard floor mats to protect the factory mats and unbeknownst to me the mat had slipped forward and was between the brake pedal and the gas pedal. I had a few harrowing minutes on that test drive let me tell you.

Within the past 4-5 years I had the same thing happen to me with a minivan rented on our vacation, the harder I pressed on the brake the more the engine ROARED.

Most recently driving our MH near dusk going westbound over Rodgers pass into Missoula MT two deer suddenly appeared in my headlights. My immediate reaction was to JAM on the brakes and couldn't figure out why the brakes had no effect. In retrospect I realized that I had tried to press my foot through the floorboard.

Missed the deer anyway.

Absent specific training, say as in flight training, repetitive practice flight training, none of us can really predict what actions we might take in a PANIC situation.