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Well it's official today, a suit was applied against them in regards to the unintended acceleration. Most notable the Highway Patrol Officer whose Lexus ES350 accelerated suddenly exceeding 100mph, he called 911 while it was happening and he crashed killing him, his daughter, wife, and brother in-law. I think it's a reasonable lawsuit as Toyota does not employ a feature that is on pretty much every German car and working into most others too.The brake-to-idle failsafe that basically puts the engine to idle if while the throttle is opened the brake pedal is depressed. Smart technology given all this drive-by-wire technology. Toyota does not have this and blames the drivers over and over. I can say for sure my next car will most likely have a DBW system and I'll be sure to look and see if the failsafe is there.

Quote, originally posted by Whelan »Well it's official today, a suit was applied against them in regards to the unintended acceleration. Most notable the Highway Patrol Officer whose Lexus ES350 accelerated suddenly exceeding 100mph, he called 911 while it was happening and he crashed killing him, his daughter, wife, and brother in-law. I think it's a reasonable lawsuit as Toyota does not employ a feature that is on pretty much every German car and working into most others too.The brake-to-idle failsafe that basically puts the engine to idle if while the throttle is opened the brake pedal is depressed. Smart technology given all this drive-by-wire technology. Toyota does not have this and blames the drivers over and over. I can say for sure my next car will most likely have a DBW system and I'll be sure to look and see if the failsafe is there. Was he unable to put the car in neutral?

I can't help but think that if you have time to call 911, you have time to think clearly and try to regain control of your car. I feel for this guy and his family, and maybe Toyota is to blame, but I can't imagine that picking up and operating a cell phone helped this guy's driving skills out any in a time of crisis.

Quote, originally posted by bodhi_tree777 »I can't help but think that if you have time to call 911, you have time to think clearly and try to regain control of your car. I feel for this guy and his family, and maybe Toyota is to blame, but I can't imagine that picking up and operating a cell phone helped this guy's driving skills out any in a time of crisis. I too feel for this guy, but if my car suddenly accelerated to extreme speeds my first reaction would be to get the car to stop somehow, i.e. putting in neutral, applying parking brake, shutting off the ignition. If he had time to call 911, he should have had plenty of time to regain control of the car.

Engaging the parking brake while doing highway speeds is an instant call for disaster if you are not careful about it and just jerk the handle hard.It may not have been him on the phone, could have been his wife or BiL. The gating on those types of cars you have to shift up and over and not everyone are car people like us who would think to pop it in neutral and then apply the brake.And at those speeds you are not only fighting the car stopping, but also the fact that the engine is accelerating which would easily cause brake fade and render them useless.As for ignition shutoffs, the car in my case used a push button ignition which is not so easy to shut off while driving. I'm not sure how these cars work with going to neutral but if they havent changed then just like my car I can pop it into neutral without any hardship and my engine would race up as the tranny is at that point disnegaged.

I'll bet it wasn't him that called 911 probably another passenger from the car.

Quote, originally posted by Whelan »Well it's official today, a suit was applied against them in regards to the unintended acceleration. Most notable the Highway Patrol Officer whose Lexus ES350 accelerated suddenly exceeding 100mph, he called 911 while it was happening and he crashed killing him, his daughter, wife, and brother in-law. I think it's a reasonable lawsuit as Toyota does not employ a feature that is on pretty much every German car and working into most others too.The brake-to-idle failsafe that basically puts the engine to idle if while the throttle is opened the brake pedal is depressed. Smart technology given all this drive-by-wire technology. Toyota does not have this and blames the drivers over and over. I can say for sure my next car will most likely have a DBW system and I'll be sure to look and see if the failsafe is there. Engaging the parking brake at 100 mph can be dangerous if you are not doing it correctly. The instance you mentioned in the first post, the person driving the car was a Highway Patrol Officer. All police officers must go through driving training. They are also trained in how to respond in emergencies. If it was the officer who called 911, like you mentioned in the first post, he should have taken other precautionary measures. He, having been trained to handle stressful situations and on how to handle a car at high speeds, he should have done something besides call 911.It is very tragic, and I don't know all the details (I am just basing my opinion on what has been posted here), but with what has been mentioned, I think it is a B.S. lawsuit.

http://www.aboutlawsuits.com/t...-6825/Quote »The complaint comes after a Lexus and Toyota recall issued on September 30, involving 3.8 million vehicles. Toyota claimed that the vehicles could experience sudden acceleration due to defective driver’s side floor mats, which can cause the accelerator to stick. However, the new class action lawsuit alleges that Toyota has failed to correct an issue with the throttle control system, indicating that the floor mats are not the only cause of the Toyota accelerator problems.and Quote »The September Toyota and Lexus recall involved more than 3.8 million vehicles, including 2004-2009 Toyota Prius, 2005-2010 Toyota Avalon, 2005-2010 Toyota Tacoma, 2007-2010 Toyota Camry, 2007-2010 Toyota Tundra, 2006-2010 Lexus IS 250 and IS 350, and 2007-2010 Lexus ES 350 models. Owners have been told to remove the driver’s side floor mats until a permanent fix can be found.The recall was prompted by a high-profile accident in California, which killed an off-duty state trooper and three family members in August. Investigators determined that the fatal crash occurred after the gas pedal on a Lexus ES 350 became caught on the edge of the floor mat, causing the Lexus to accelerate to 120 m.p.h. before falling off an embankment, rolling over multiple times and bursting into flames.Minutes before the accident, passengers in vehicle called police and reported that the Lexus was accelerating out of control, and witnesses reported that the car’s tires were on fire, which was likely caused by the driver slamming on the brakes.alsohttp://news.google.com/news/st...zrOTM

According to what I found is that at that speed and without the override failsafe that many other cars have, you would have to apply upwards of 150lbs. of pedal force (instead of the average 30) to even get the car to attempt to slow down. But again, while fighting the acceleration of the engine that would very easily cause panic in anyone.

Hard to know what happened just from press reports, have seen a lot of contradictory reporting, one report even speculated that it was intentional murder-suicide by the driver, don't know how they came up with that one.Very strange that a CHP couldn't control the car, as they are supposedly far better trained than your average driver. I remember when I read about this that something did not ring true and it still doesn't. Maybe the lawsuit will force some answers, maybe not.I agree the brake override to the throttle sounds like a good idea, especially when a throttle is electronically controlled.

This was a tragedy but this driver was a trained CHPS officer. If anyone anywhere is trained to be calm in a panic situation he should qualify. This wasn't some ignorant 16 year old or confused old man, this was a professional driver.There is part of this story untold and may never be told. There are other contributing factors at play here, drugs? alcohol? texting? cell phone use?Sadly, cops protect their own when they can, is this an example of that?Any car rolling on the road will pop into neutral with a gentle nudge. They may fight you going into gear from park or neutral but coming out of gear is a bump the stick process. Even the newer digital column sticks will bump into neutral.I'll wait for the REST of the story.Dave