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Runaway Prius driver: Brakes were 'almost burned'

2010-03-10 12:31:14

By ELLIOT SPAGAT, Associated Press Writer Elliot Spagat, Associated Press Writer 1 hr 11 mins ago

EL CAJON, Calif. Before he called 911, James Sikes says he reached down with his hand to loosen the "stuck" accelerator on his 2008 Toyota Prius, his other hand on the steering wheel. The pedal didn't move.

"My car can't slow down," he began when a California Highway Patrol dispatcher answered his call.

Sikes, 61, rolled to a stop 23 harrowing minutes later, he and his blue Prius emerging unscathed but Toyota Motor Corp. suffering another big dent. Toyota has watched its reputation for quality crumble with recalls tied to risks that cars can accelerate uncontrollably or can't brake properly.

Todd Neibert, the CHP officer who gave instructions to Sikes over a loudspeaker as they went east on mountainous Interstate 8 in San Diego County Monday afternoon, said he smelled burning brakes when he caught up with the Prius.

The officer said he told Sikes to push the brake pedal to the floor and apply the emergency brakes as the Prius neared 85 mph. The car slowed to about 55 mph, at which time Sikes says he turned off the ignition and the car came to a stop.

"The brakes were definitely down to hardly any material," Neibert told reporters Tuesday. "There was a bunch of brake material on the ground and inside the wheels."

The officer found the floor mat properly placed and the accelerator and brake pedals in correct resting position.

The freeway incident happened at the worst possible time for Toyota just hours after it invited reporters to hear experts insist that electronic flaws could not cause cars to speed out of control under real driving conditions.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has sent two investigators to examine the car. Toyota spokesman Brian Lyons said the automaker is sending three of its own technicians to investigate.

Another Toyota spokesman, John Hanson, said the company wanted to talk to the driver.

Sikes' car was covered by Toyota's floor mat recall, but the driver said the pedal jammed and was not trapped under the mat.

Sikes, a real estate agent, said he was passing another car when the accelerator stuck and eventually reached 94 mph.

During the two 911 calls, Sikes ignored many of the dispatcher's questions, saying later that he had to put his phone on the seat to keep his hands on the wheel.

Leighann Parks, a 24-year-old dispatcher, repeatedly told him to throw the car into neutral but got no answers.

"He was very emotional, you could tell on the line he was panicked," Parks told reporters outside the CHP's El Cajon office. "I could only imagine being in his shoes and being that stressed."

Neibert told Sikes after the CHP caught up with him to shift to neutral but the driver shook his head no. Sikes told reporters he didn't go into neutral because he worried the car would flip.

The driver rolled down the window and Neibert told him to apply both brakes. Sikes said he lifted his buttocks from the seat to press the floor brake, an account backed by the officer.

The cars maneuvered around two trucks going uphill to a "clear, wide-open road," Neibert said. The officer had only about 15 miles to stop the vehicle before a steep downgrade and was considering spike strips to puncture the tires as a last resort.

In the final minutes of the 911 call, Sikes tells the dispatcher, "My brakes are almost burned out."

After the car stops, Sikes sighs with relief.

Neibert, a 14-year CHP veteran, worked with Officer Mark Saylor, who was killed in August along with his wife, her brother and the couple's daughter after their Lexus' accelerator became trapped by a wrong-size floor mat on a freeway in nearby La Mesa. The loaner car hit a sport utility vehicle and burst into flames.

Toyota has since recalled some 8.5 million vehicles worldwide more than 6 million in the United States because of acceleration problems in multiple models and braking issues in the Prius. Regulators have linked 52 deaths to crashes allegedly caused by accelerator problems. Still, there have been more than 60 reports of sudden acceleration in cars that have been fixed under the recall.

___

Associated Press writers Stephen Manning in Washington, D.C., and Greg Risling in Los Angeles, and AP Auto Writer Dan Strumpf in New York contributed to this report.

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Posted: 2010194@317.80

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stranger

Toyota Hybrid Horror Hoax

Michael Fumento, 03.12.10, 01:37 PM EST

Exploring an overblown media frenzy.

"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."

In fact, almost none of this was true. Virtually every aspect of Sikes's story as told to reporters makes no sense. His claim that he'd tried to yank up the accelerator could be falsified, with his help, in half a minute. And now we even have an explanation for why he'd pull such a stunt, beyond the all-American desire to have 15 minutes of fame (recall the "Balloon Boy Hoax" from October) and the aching need to be perceived as a victim.

The lack of skepticism from the beginning was stunning. I combed through haystacks of articles without producing such needles as the words "alleges" or "claims." When Sikes said he brought his car to a Toyota ( TM - news - people ) dealer two weeks earlier, recall notice in hand, and they just turned him away, the media bought that, too. In Sikes We Trust. Then the pundits deluged us with a tsunami of an anti-Toyota sanctimony .

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.

"I thought about" shifting into neutral, Sikes said at a televised press conference the day after the incident. But "I had never played with this kind of a transmission, especially when you're driving and I was actually afraid to do that." Sikes, who has driven the car for two years, also said "I figured if I knocked it over [the gear knob] the car might flip."

He told CNN, "I was afraid to try to [reach] over there and put it in neutral. I was holding onto the steering wheel with both hands--94 miles an hour in a Toyota Prius is fast." Yet for much of the ride he had a phone in one hand. And this is especially interesting: Most gear shifts are on the console, requiring the hand to drop to shift. But, as this image shows, in the 2008 Prius it's located on the dash within inches of the steering wheel precisely to allow shifting without the hand leaving the wheel. I sat in one and did it easily. Another unique feature of the shift is that it's amazingly simple, with only forward, reverse, neutral and "B." The express purpose of "B" is to slow the car while preserving the brakes, as in a steep descent. Sikes actually could have shifted into two different gears.

Moreover, why would Sikes describe shifting gears as somehow "playing with the transmission." And apparently he's never shifted while the vehicle was moving and thought somehow a gear shift could flip his car.

The dispatcher also pleaded with him repeatedly to hit the ignition button. Again, he says he was simply afraid to.

Early in the press conference he said it was because "There was too much traffic to just shut the car off. You know, turn off the vehicle and get hit in the rear." But that's always true when you slow down; just make sure nobody's right behind you. Later he switched gears, pun not intended, saying he was afraid the steering wheel and wheels would lock up.

Then there are the brakes.

Sikes said his brakes had just been checked out a few weeks earlier, but during the incident he "was laying on the brakes. It was not slowing down."

Others have made similar claims, so Car & Driver magazine recently put them to the test. They found a V-6 Camry at full throttle could be stopped at 435 feet. But to really test the claim, they used a powerful 540-horsepower supercharged Roush Stage 3 Mustang. It took 903 feet, but stop it did. By comparison the Prius can only muster 110 anemic ponies. Further, as Newton's Second Law reminds us, weight is inherently a factor in slowing a moving object. The Prius weighs about two-thirds of what the Roush does.

But while these other cars were brought to full stop, Sikes says he couldn't even reduce his speed. A video on the Web also demonstrates a 2008 Prius easily slowed to a stop with the accelerator fully depressed.

An assisting officer said he saw Sikes apply the brakes and smelled them. But of course that was only when he drew close to the vehicle. The officer doesn't know what Sikes was doing before he arrived on the scene.

Now here's the potential smoking gun: Sikes told the reporters that "I was reaching down and trying to pull up on the gas pedal. It didn't move at all; it was stationary." That's awfully daring for somebody who insisted he didn't even want to take a hand off his steering wheel, notwithstanding that he did so to hold his phone.

I tried to imitate Sikes' alleged effort in a 2008 Prius. From the front bottom of the steering wheel to the front bottom of the accelerator in up position it's 28.5 inches; while fully deployed it's 2.5 inches farther away. I have average-length arms (33-inch shirt sleeve) and no gut. But even though the steering wheel was as flush to the dashboard as it goes, it prevented me from all but touching the accelerator in the up position.

To reach behind a deployed accelerator and get any kind of a grip you'd have to add at least three more inches. In my case, it required squashing my face against the radio and completely removing my eyes from the road. Only the tallest men could physically do what Sikes claimed he did and no press accounts refer his being exceptionally tall. But to settle this issue (albeit not the others), Sikes would simply have to sit in his Prius and show he could reach behind the pedal while it was fully depressed. Why has nobody asked him to do so? Moreover, even for an orangutan it would be an incredibly awkward move for somebody afraid to pop a car into neutral or hit the ignition button.

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.

For what it's worth, Sikes owned and operated a Web site called AdultSwingLife.com. More salacious material on this man will continue to pour in.

But the press conference alone makes it clear Sikes' story didn't wash. Journalism schools are supposed to teach that skepticism is paramount. "If your mother says it, check it out," goes the old adage. Yet comments on Web sites across the country reveal that practically everyone thought the Prius incident was a hoax--though they couldn't prove it--except for the media.

They have been as determined to not investigate Sikes' claims as Sikes was to not stop his car. It's a Toyota media feeding frenzy and the media aren't about to let little things like incredible stories and readily-refutable claims get in the way.

Michael Fumento is director of the nonprofit Independent Journalism Project where he specialized in science issues. He can be reached at fumento@pobox.com.

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Posted: 2010197@310.10

stranger

APNewsBreak: Probe questions runaway Prius story

By ELLIOT SPAGAT and KEN THOMAS, Associated Press Writers Elliot Spagat And Ken Thomas, Associated Press Writers 55 mins ago

SAN DIEGO Investigators with Toyota Motor Corp. and the federal government were unable to make a Toyota Prius speed out of control as its owner said it did on a California freeway, according to a draft memorandum obtained Saturday by The Associated Press that casts doubt on the driver's story.

James Sikes, 61, called 911 on Monday to report losing control of his Prius as the hybrid reached speeds of 94 mph. A California Highway Patrol officer helped Sikes bring the vehicle to a safe stop on Interstate 8 near San Diego.

During two hours of test drives of Sikes' car Thursday, technicians with Toyota and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration failed to duplicate the same experience that Sikes described, according to the memo prepared for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

"Every time the technician placed the gas pedal to the floor and the brake pedal to the floor the engine shut off and the car immediately started to slow down," the memo said.

The report says that, according to Toyota's "residential Hybrid expert," the Prius is designed to shut down if the brakes are applied while the gas pedal is pressed to the floor. If it doesn't, the engine would "completely seize."

"In this case, knowing that we are able to push the car around the shop, it does not appear to be feasibly possible, both electronically and mechanically that his gas pedal was stuck to the floor and he was slamming on the brake at the same time," the memo said.

The findings raise questions about "the credibility of Mr. Sikes' reporting of events," said Kurt Bardella, a spokesman for California Rep. Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the committee, which is looking into the incident.

Sikes could not be reached to comment. However, his wife, Patty Sikes, said he stands by his story.

"Everyone can just leave us alone," she said. "Jim didn't get hurt. There's no intent at all to sue Toyota. If any good can come out of this, maybe they can find out what happened so other people don't get killed."

Mrs. Sikes said the couple's lives have been turned upside down since Monday and they are getting death threats.

"We're just fed up with all of it," she said. "Our careers are ruined and life is just not good anymore."

Monday's incident appeared to be another blow to Toyota, which has had to fend off intense public backlash over safety after recalls of some 8.5 million vehicles worldwide more than 6 million in the United States because of acceleration and floor mat problems in multiple models and braking issues in the Prius. Regulators have linked 52 deaths to crashes allegedly caused by accelerator problems.

The brakes on the Prius also did not show wear consistent with having been applied at full force at high speeds for a long period, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday, citing three people familiar with the probe, whom it did not name. The newspaper said the brakes may have been applied intermittently.

Toyota Corp. spokesman Mike Michels declined to confirm the Journal's report. He said the investigation was continuing and the company planned to release technical findings soon.

Michels said the hybrid braking system in the Prius would make the engine lose power if the brakes and accelerator were pressed at the same time.

The memo did say that investigators found the front brake pads were spent.

"Visually checking the brake pads and rotor it was clearly visible that there was nothing left," it said.

The rear brake pads had 1/2 mm left, or 3 1/2 mm less than new pads, the memo said.

Jill Zuckman, spokeswoman for the U.S. Transportation Department that oversees the highway safety agency, said investigators "are still reviewing data and have not reached any conclusions."

Sikes called 911 from the freeway on Monday and reported that his gas pedal was stuck and he could not slow down. In two calls that spanned 23 minutes, a dispatcher repeatedly told him to throw the car into neutral and turn it off.

Sikes later said he had put down the phone to keep both hands on the wheel and was afraid the car would flip if he put it in neutral at such high speed.

The officer who eventually pulled alongside the car and told Sikes over a loudspeaker to push the brake pedal to the floor and apply the emergency brake said Sikes braking coincided with a steep incline on the freeway.

Once the car slowed to 50 mph, Sikes shut off the engine, the officer said.

The memorandum obtained by The AP said when investigators placed the Prius up on a lift, they found the driver side front wheel well was dislodged and the brake pads were worn down. "Visually checking the brake pads and rotor it was clearly visible that there was nothing left," the memo said.

The memo describes a series of tests conducted by the company and NHTSA on Wednesday and Thursday. A full diagnostics was conducted, followed an inspection of the brakes and a test drive. The Prius was compared with a separate test vehicle provided by the San Diego dealership with identical year, make, model and color features as the one under investigation.

Following the tests, NHTSA bought the gas pedal, throttle body and the two computers from Sikes' vehicle, the memo said. The estimated cost was $2,500 for the parts and labor.

Drivers of two other Toyota vehicles that crashed last week said those incidents also resulted from the vehicles accelerating suddenly.

NHTSA is sending experts to a New York City suburb where the driver of a 2005 Prius said she crashed into a stone wall Monday after the car accelerated on its own.

And in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the driver of a 2007 Lexus said it careened through a parking lot and crashed into a light pole Thursday after its accelerator suddenly dropped to the floor. That car was the subject of a floor mat recall. Driver Myrna Cook of Paulding, Ohio, said it had been repaired.

___

Thomas reported from Washington, D.C.

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Posted: 2010203@464.18

stranger

Toyota dismisses Calif. man's runaway Prius report

By ELLIOT SPAGAT and TOM KRISHER, Associated Press Writers Elliot Spagat And Tom Krisher, Associated Press Writers 2 hrs 30 mins ago

SAN DIEGO Toyota Motor Corp. was quiet last week when James Sikes told reporters how the gas pedal got stuck on his 2008 Prius, leading him on a wild ride on a Southern California freeway.

Now the Japanese automaker is talking at length about how its tests don't support Sikes' version of events, and the driver is quiet.

Toyota says its tests showed the car's gas pedal, backup safety system and electronics were working fine. It was unable to replicate the stuck gas pedal that Sikes reported.

The automaker said Monday that it found Sikes rapidly pressed the gas and brakes back and forth 250 times, the maximum amount of data that the car's self-diagnostic system can collect. That account appears to contradict Sikes' statements backed by the California Highway Patrol that he slammed the brakes, even lifting his buttocks off the seat.

Toyota officials said they believed Sikes hit the pedals lightly, which would have prevented a brake-override system from kicking in. Under the Prius design, engine power is cut if the brake pedal is pressed with moderate force.

Toyota stopped short of saying that Sikes fabricated his story.

"We have no opinion on his account, what he's been saying, other than the scenario is not consistent with the technical findings," spokesman Mike Michels said at a news conference.

The episode March 8 was among the highest-profile headaches Toyota has suffered in recent months. It recalled more than 8 million cars and trucks worldwide because gas pedals can become stuck in the down position or be snagged by floor mats. Dozens of Toyota drivers have reported problems even after their cars were supposedly fixed.

The company had no explanation for discrepancies with Sikes' account but confirmed the brakes were overheated and the pads worn. Bob Waltz, vice president of product, quality and service support at Toyota Motor Sales USA, said the front brakes were "metal to metal."

Toyota said it believes a CHP officer's account that he smelled burning brakes while guiding Sikes on the freeway. Officials said repeatedly pressing the pedal could have overheated the brakes but were unclear why the car didn't stop sooner than it did.

"That is the puzzling aspect of this," Michels said in an interview. "All we know are the engineering facts. We looked at all the components, they all work."

Toyota said its tests showed the car's electronics were working fine.

"If there were some kind of electronic problem, you would think it might actually stay permanent," Michels said. "When your TV goes on the fritz, when electronic stuff goes on the fritz, it doesn't just do it once and never do it again."

Sikes, 61, has said his car raced to 94 mph on Interstate 8 east of San Diego. He said he reached down with one hand to try to pull the pedal back, while keeping the other hand on the wheel. He called 911 but did not respond to repeated instructions from the dispatcher to throw the car into neutral.

The CHP officer eventually helped bring the car safely to a stop by telling him over a loudspeaker to hit the emergency brake and foot brake simultaneously.

Sikes spoke to reporters shortly after the incident but has since kept a low profile. He did not respond to phone messages Monday.

John Gomez, Sikes' attorney, said Monday that he would not comment on the episode until a government investigation was complete. Gomez has noted previously that Toyota has never been able to replicate stuck accelerator.

"This problem is sort of a ghost in the machine that is the Toyota system," he said Sunday. "It doesn't leave a fault code, it doesn't leave a footprint, and you can't make it happen upon demand."

The 2008 Prius is subject to a recall for floor mats but not sticky accelerators.

--- Mobile internet site for reading on mobile phones, smartphones, small screens and slow internet connections. ---http://mpggalaxy.mine.bz/www/BB/mobile_news/threads/index_last.html

Posted: 2010206@461.78

stranger

Toyota shifts scrutiny of runaway cars to NY Prius

By DAN STRUMPF and KEN THOMAS, Associated Press Writers Dan Strumpf And Ken Thomas, Associated Press Writers Tue Mar 16, 6:11 pm ET

NEW YORK Toyota's investigation of sudden acceleration in some of its cars is shifting to suburban New York, where a driver said her Prius sped up on its own and slammed into a stone wall.

Technicians from Toyota will join government investigators in Harrison, N.Y., on Wednesday to inspect the car. Toyota plans to examine an internal data recorder that documents the moments before and after a crash.

The company will use equipment to determine how many times the driver hit the brakes and gas. It used the same tools earlier this week to cast doubt on a California driver who claimed his Prius sped to 94 mph before a patrol officer helped him stop it.

In the Harrison case, authorities have said there is no indication of driver error. A housekeeper told police the car sped up on its own as she eased forward down her employer's driveway on March 9 and hit a wall across the street. She was not hurt.

Toyota recalled more than 8 million cars because their gas pedals could become stuck or be snagged by floor mats. In addition, the government is looking into complaints from at least 60 Toyota drivers who say they got their cars fixed and still had problems. Toyota is checking into those complaints as well.

The investigations reflect challenges faced by the company and government. Dealers and experts have had trouble recreating episodes of sudden acceleration, and Toyota says tests have failed to find other problems beyond the sticking gas pedals and floor mats.

Some safety experts have said electronics, not simpler mechanical flaws, could be causing the problems. Toyota has said it has found no evidence of problems with its electronics but is studying the issue.

"It's not the old garden-variety defect investigation, where you have a broken part and the vehicle is disabled. It's an intermittent problem," said Allan J. Kam, a former senior enforcement attorney for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration who now directs a private consulting firm.

Toyota officials said they did not know how long the New York investigation would take. The company plans to release the results to Harrison police but not to the media because the police are also investigating.

The Prius is not on Toyota's recall list for sticky accelerators. However, the 2005 hybrid had been serviced for the floor mat problem.

On Monday, Toyota held a press conference in San Diego to challenge the story of James Sikes, who claimed his Prius sped out of control on the freeway last week. The company said its own tests had found almost nothing wrong with the car, and said Sikes had apparently pressed the brakes and gas at least 250 times.

Jason Vines, who was Ford Motor Co.'s top public relations executive when the company faced scrutiny over massive Firestone tire recalls on its cars in 2000, said the San Diego case would prompt similar interest in the New York investigation.

"They've gotten themselves into another box because of doing it one time in San Diego and now not doing it (in Harrison)," Vines said. "It's just going to create more confusion."

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Posted: 2010211@446.68

stranger

Feds: Brakes weren't applied on crashed NY Prius

By JIM FITZGERALD and KEN THOMAS, Associated Press Writers Jim Fitzgerald And Ken Thomas, Associated Press Writers Fri Mar 19, 1:35 am ET

HARRISON, N.Y. Computer data from a Toyota Prius that crashed in suburban New York City show that at the time of the accident the throttle was open and the driver was not applying the brakes, U.S. safety officials said Thursday.

The disclosure prompted an angry response from the police captain investigating the cause of the accident. He said his probe was not over and driver error had not been established.

"For any agency to release data and to draw conclusions without consulting with the law enforcement agency that brought this to light could be self-serving," said Capt. Anthony Marraccini of the Harrison, N.Y., force.

A housekeeper driving the car on March 9 told police that it sped up on its own down a driveway, despite her braking, and crashed into a stone wall across the street. She was not seriously hurt.

The accident set off an intense investigation because Toyota has recalled more than 8 million cars since last fall over gas pedals that could become stuck or be held down by floor mats.

The Prius hasn't been recalled for sticky accelerators. However, the car involved in the accident under investigation had been repaired for the floor mat problem. An Associated Press analysis of government data found more than 100 reports of repaired cars continuing to accelerate on their own.

Technicians from Toyota and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the police department's own consultants examined the wrecked 2005 Prius outside police headquarters in Harrison on Wednesday. Marraccini said NHTSA also interviewed the driver.

On Thursday, NHTSA said information from the car's computer systems indicated there was no application of the brakes and the throttle was fully open. It did not elaborate.

The Prius is equipped with an event data recorder, or "black box" designed to record the state of the car at the moment of the impact.

Marraccini cautioned that even if NHTSA's disclosure is accurate, "This is a snapshot. This is not the total investigation."

He said the Harrison police have not closed their investigation or examined all data that was retrieved.

Earlier, the captain also criticized Toyota for announcing the evidence was "conclusive" and for providing him with data from the recorder but not the software he needed to read it.

"You can't open it, you can't read it, you can't do anything with it," Marraccini said.

Toyota spokesman Wade Hoyt said later that the company was arranging for the police to get temporary access to the needed software "at a reduced cost." He said it typically costs about $7,000 but is also available on a temporary basis for $50.

In a report earlier this month, The Associated Press found that for years, Toyota has blocked access to data stored in the "black boxes" that could explain crashes blamed on sudden unintended acceleration.

Marraccini said police would be meeting again Friday with Toyota and he believed the company would cooperate fully.

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Thomas reported from Washington. AP Auto Writer Dan Strumpf in New York contributed to this report.