<p>61 year old realtor couldn’t stop his Prius…had to be told to apply the emergency brake and shut off the engine?! Tied up 911 for 23 minutes?! Light traffic on San Diego freeway? </p>
<p>This situation doesn’t pass the smell test for me. Reporters should dig into these drivers backgrounds.</p>
<p>DW’s Prius is the same as the SD guy. She couldn’t fall asleep lastnight after changing her DF’s diaper, watch some early morn TV and again saw the interview with this driver. She is not happy, and I am not happy. We have been going over the procedure of putting the car in neutral, hitting the power button, and even thinking about throwing the electonic key out the window.</p>
<p>Reminds me of the story a few years ago…anyone remember it? This woman claimed she was unable to stop her car, had to keep driving in circles, they chased her down…it went on for a very long time. She was all over the news for awhile and later it was revealed to be a hoax.</p>
<p>How many people do you know that would have the presence of mind to shift to neutral while going 94 mph with their foot off the gas? Most would have both hands firmly gripping the wheel, I would think. The cop was right next to the car - are you saying he was tricked?</p>
<p>I find this story to be totally believable. I have always held Toyota in high regard, but I believe they have been covering up this problem all along and continue to be deceptive.</p>
<p>I will never purchase a Toyota. Never say never, except in this case I say never.</p>
<p>The ironic thing to me is most Prius/Camry drivers drive terribly slow and would benefit from some additional acceleration.</p>
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He reached down and looked to see if anything was blocking the accelerator…could have shifted to neutral more easily.</p>
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You lose power steering…however on relatively straight freeway, it wouldn’t be much of a problem…Put on the hazard lights and coast to a stop.</p>
<p>I agree it’s all hypothetical and what would you do?..However, I would not have taken the time to call 911.
The driver didn’t follow the dispatcher’s directions…and was on the phone for 23 minutes.</p>
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Yeah, the cop can’t see what pedals the driver had his foot on.</p>
<p>I highly doubt it is a hoax…Toyota is sending their engineers to look at the car. IMHO they are doing that to settle the lawsuit case before the Prius owner finds an attorney.</p>
<p>The police have stated they could see him standing upright in the car trying to place more pressure on the brakes. He was not on a straight away it was a twisting and turning road.</p>
<p>Toyota must be cringing right now because the Prius is their rainmaker, not any more! </p>
<p>Doesn’t affect me, I am a Honda/Acura buyer.</p>
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Really? You wouldn’t have called 911 to say get police out here now, my car is runaway, and I need them to help! I would, in a heartbeat. </p>
<p>As far as not taking directions, let’s put that into perspective. You are going 94 mph, trying to see if it is the floor mat, stepping on your brake, negotiating curves with your heart racing, good luck at answering the questions correctly.</p>
<p>I think it’s real. It happened on I-8 east of San Diego where there’s very little traffic. I thought I read that the car wouldn’t allow itself to be shifted into neutral. On some of these cars nowadays every actuator is nothing other than an input to the computer which in turn decides what the action will be - i.e. the computer says “the driver shifted the lever into neutral, shall I shift the tranny into neutral now or because the accelerator’s still depressed shall I override that because that could damage the engine?”. The other inputs are the same with the ignition on/off switch, start switch, brake pedal, door locks, interior lights, headlamps, etc. People need to hope the car manufacturers are hiring excellent software engineers nowadays because that’s where much of the ‘engineering’ in a modern car is now rather than just mechanical engineering.</p>
<p>I own a 2010 Prius (and love it). Throwing the electronic key out the window will do nothing but make it start beeping at you :). If you push the park button while driving (faster than walking speed), the car will beep and go instantly into neutral, where you will have full braking and steering authority. You can also pull the gearshift to the left, hold it there for a couple of seconds, and it will shift into neutral. The brakes will stop the car cold in a full runaway if you actually apply them steadily rather than pumping or “trying” them as our friend from SD did. Also, the Prius is a rather light car which is easily handled without power brakes or steering, so pushing the “off” button is clearly an option. These options have all been verified by the geeky engineers on priuschat. Using the cell phone in an emergency is the dumbest thing imaginable. I learned about shifting a runaway car into neutral as a teen in the 1970s. Incidently, the 2010 Prius is not one of the runaway accelerators, although the PWR button will give it a quick turbo boost. I am enjoying the fact that the pickups which were trying to run me off the road on principle are now giving me a wide berth, in addition to 50 mpg in the city ;). This is my third Toyota and won’t be my last.</p>
<p>Yeah, I"m a bit skeptical of this one too - so he was perfectly happy to turn the car off at 50 mph but not 90? Decided to call 911 and spend 23 minutes on the phone with them before trying the obvious choice of shifting into neutral or turning the car off?</p>
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<p>As others have said, no, you just loose power steering, which is not a problem at all, especially at higher speeds (the faster you’re going, the easier it will be to turn the wheel when you don’t have power steering).</p>
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<p>Well personally, I think we do a terrible job with driver education in this country. Emergency car control should be taught at length. But this guy was 61 years old - not exactly a new driver. And it’s been my experience that older drivers (who grew up driving unreliable cars) tend to be more aware of the practical ways to deal with situations like this (blown tire at speed, uncontrolled acceleration, loss of brakes, etc.) than new drivers.</p>
<p>I still think that Toyotas are some of the best-made cars out there.</p>
<p>Interstate 8 has hills, but I wouldn’t classify it as a “twisting and turning road”.</p>
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He called 911 for help and didn’t respond to the suggestion to put it in neutral…he said he had to “control the car”…however, he claimed he reached down and checked the gas pedal, even straining his shoulder…he claimed he thought the car would flip if he put it in neutral…LOL! Yeah, it would if you cut the wheel hard at 94 mph…not by just putting it in neutral. </p>
<p>The guy looks like a wheeler/dealer type…former lottery winner and “real estate agent to the stars”.</p>
<p>Hoax will be discovered like balloon boy parents.</p>
<p>I, a 120-lb woman (at that time), was able to stop my small car that lost both power steering and power-assisted brakes at 60 mph on a freeway (we were coming home from a movie, it was late at night so thank god there was no traffic). Luckily for me, the engine also shut off so I did not have to deal with turning it off, and the car came to a full stop on the side of the freeway. No big deal, I was not scared, just puzzled. Turns out, the alternator died, and since the battery was pretty old… that’s what happened.</p>