The complaints on the 2010 Toyota Prius have been as detailed as this one that I found on safercar.gov, the website to go to complain about safety issues:
"On three occasions, while driving on clean, dry road surfaces, my 2010 prius suddenly and briefly accelerated without any warning after I drove over minor bumps and, on 1 occasion, a manhole cover, while braking. The sensation was that of the engine suddenly surging and accelerating. I was fortunately able to apply harder pressure to the brake pedal, regained control of the vehicle and avoided crashing into the car in front of me. I spoke with a Toyota field technical specialist today who told me that the mechanics of the car are such that if a wheel hits a bump or moves onto a surface that causes it to rotate at a different rate versus the other wheels, the car thinks it is going into a skid, and the ABS system kicks in. also, the system that generates energy to recharge the battery, which also effectively brakes the car, suddenly ceases to operate. consequently, you have the sensation of acceleration when in fact, according to the Toyota specialist, the car stopped decelerating. nonetheless, this sudden deceleration is unexpected, and if i was not focused at those exact moments and failed to immediately apply significant pressure to the brake pedal, i could have easily crashed into an object, or car, or person, in front of me. i do not feel safe in this car, and am worried that my wife or son could have a major problem responding to this sudden lack of control. there is great potential for serious injury or death from this type of incident. my car is about 1 month old, with 1,250 miles on it. i understand from the specialist that toyota dealerships on long island have had at least one other similar complaint."
The real scandal here is our failure to develop a car fueled by liquefied natural gas. I gather that thanks to recent developments by small- and medium-sized natural gas companies, we now have at least a century's worth of the stuff.
Back in the day, just around the time when Audi had its troubles - which Audi could never adequately explain or defend - I was coming home from work one night and found the garage door closed. It was raining. I slammed the gearshift from ‘drive’ into ‘park’, jumped out of the car and went to open it. Suddenly I saw the car slowly rolling towards me. I was lucky it wasn’t an Audi and that I had parked it far enough back. The car was slow enough to give me a chance to raise the door, jump to the side, get back into the vehicle and slam on the brakes before hitting the back wall. It turns out that instead of ‘P’, I had shifted to ‘1’ with the engine running. After that experience I have always doubted the tales of the Audi bashers.
What intrigues me about the Toyota story is how so many view our own government’s involvement at the periphery with suspicion. They quite rightly point out that Toyota is one of the most significant competitors of G(overnment) M(otors); but then they take a further leap in claiming (also correctly) that anything bad that can be disseminated about Toyota would help give a leg up to U. S. government-owned GM. And that this was the real reason for U.S transportation chief, Ray LaHood, jumping on the bandwagon so quickly, telling people to “stop driving them (Toyotas)”.
Besides, we just don’t believe anything the government says anymore about anything: color-coded terror threats; unemployment numbers; pandemic alerts; etc. It’s all become a great big game with this administration to say anything, but do only that which nobody talks about.
It all takes me back to when Bush was said to have personally orchestrated the World Trade Center bombing (because Cheney wanted a war).
This is what scares me: Whereas I never saw the ‘truthers’ as anything but a bunch of cranks, I’m tempted to give credence to any Chicago-style bad-mouthing, death threatening, kneecapping, cement shoeing, land filling ploy originating from within this White House. Remember: “Never let a crisis go to waste.”
http://peterkoelliker.blogspot.com/