Forbes – Toyota Hybrid Horror Hoax:
“On the very day Toyota was making a high-profile defense of its cars, one of them was speeding out of control,” said CBS News–and a vast number of other media outlets worldwide. The driver of a 2008 Toyota Prius, James Sikes, called 911 to say his accelerator was stuck, he was zooming faster than 90 miles per hour and absolutely couldn’t slow down.
It got far more dramatic, though. The California Highway Patrol responded and “To get the runaway car to stop, they actually had to put their patrol car in front of the Prius and step on the brakes.” During over 20 harrowing minutes, according to NBC’s report, Sikes “did everything he could to try to slow down that Prius.” Others said, “Radio traffic indicated the driver was unable to turn off the engine or shift the car into neutral.”
Where to begin?
Well, the patrol car didn’t slow down the Prius; the bumpers never touched. The officers used a loudspeaker to tell Sikes to use the brakes and emergency brake together. He did; the car slowed to about 55 mph. Sikes turned off the engine and coasted to a halt. He stopped the car on his own.
There wasn’t anything wrong with the transmission or the Prius engine button either.
Over a 23-minute period the 911 dispatcher repeatedly pleaded with Sikes to shift into neutral. He simply refused and then essentially stopped talking to her except to say that he thought he could smell his brakes burning.
So why did he do it? Sleuth work at the Web sites Jalopnik.com and Gawker.com reveals that Sikes and his wife Patty in 2008 filed for bankruptcy and are over $700,000 in debt. Among their creditors is Toyota Financial Services for a lease on a 2008 Toyota Prius, with value at time of bankruptcy of $20,494. The Jalopnik Web site shows a copy of Toyota’s secured claims form, though when Jalopnik questioned Sikes by e-mail he denied being behind on his Prius payments.
Sikes also has a history of filing insurance claims for allegedly stolen items that are slowly coming to light. In 2001 he filed a police report with the Merced County Sheriff’s Department for $58,000 in stolen property, including jewelry, a prosumer mini-DV camera and gear, and $24,000 in cash, according to Fox40 in Sacramento. His bankruptcy documents show a 2008 payment of $7,400 for an allegedly stolen saxophone and clothes.
Previously – Edgar Martins, photographer and bullshit artist
LATER: Investigation questions Prius driver’s story: report:
“But the investigation of the vehicle, carried out jointly by safety officials … didn’t find signs the brake had been applied at full force at high speeds over a sustained period of time,” the Journal said, citing three people familiar with the investigation. (Reporting by Ransdell Pierson; editing by Gunna Dickson)
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Pingback: Toyota Hybrid Horror Hoax – Forbes.com « harqueb.us
Geez, why didn’t any of the tv news outlets check their sources before creating another media news circus. They just love a good highway chase to broadcast. As a owner of an 05 Prius I am breathing a big sigh of releif!
Toyota and the CHIP should press charges of fraud and endangerment on this guy. How unfair it would have been if he lost control of the car during his “stunt” and killed or injured other drivers or the police officer. I know lie detector tests aren’t admissable in court, but I’d like to see this guy take a test and what the results would be. He sounds like a train wreck waiting to happen on icy rails. Shameful.
All the new “safety features” in new cars, such as ABS, Traction Control, Stability Control and Cruise Control, acting through common hardware elements controlled by computers are potentially death traps waiting to grab somebody. And considering the complexity of these issues, with the faults not necessarily confined to Toyota, the only realistic way to study these issues is the installation of data collectors on vehicles in question that will allow real-time collection of data in large quantities over long periods of time from large numbers of sensors. The sensors are already on board as parts of all the Emissions Controls and Safety Features. In addition one needs to capture the command and feedback signals from all the actuators, that is, what they were commanded to do and why, and how they actually responded. The other manufacturers are already largely in compliance with such rules as best can be determined by public information but Toyota is holding out to the bitter end, not saying how much of this data is already being collected and they are not sharing anyway, making the pathetic excuse that there is only one “special computer” in this country capable of accessing and evaluating this data.
Toyota claims that their systems save only several seconds of data and that only in response to an event forceful enough to trigger the air bags. But then they prove themselves liars by showing 20 minutes of data from the wild 30 mile ride of James Sipes, allegedly showing very rapid pumping of the brakes and full throttle application. But only when it seemed convenient. They could just as easily have destroyed the data if it had proved inconvenient. Toyota is not doing much to advance its own cause. David Strickland has declared them untruthful. I would add the terms deceitful and deceptive. Toyota needs to be brought into line and not with data collection systems of their own design.
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The whole toyota recall for faults is complete fabrication, sounds ridiculous I know. But if you are there saying “yeh right” Phone up your local Toyota dealer and ask how many faults they have had in the last 10 years on their cars, how many recalls? – go straight to the source.
Start questioning the media and the auto industry in the US then you are on the right tracks.
Its upsetting but true
I have reported lot of such scam to Scampond. There is tons of scam horror stories on scampond.com