Anyone else caught in this Toyota recall/shutdown?

[tstex]

kicked-in...in order to shift into neutral, you have to take your eyes off the road and concentrate on some letters [P, R, N, D], which may even be on a console to your right.

If you have to take your eyes off the road to shift gears - you haven't earned the right to have a license yet.

That being said - some people seem to be born with no survival instinct    The human gene pool is getting so large there are bound to be a few poor swimmers 

I agree about the human gene pool getting smaller, regardless of what the situation is, or what country you live.

Swamp-Donkey makes my point exactly, it is not what you can do under normal circumstances, but what you do during an elevated time of stress...i am not talking about shifting a manual into neutral.  Many of the cars today have "ziz-zag" console positions - my point stands.

Here is a direct quote from the SanDiego paper that precipitated "a legal" investigation of this matter.  If you are someone that can positively react to any given situation regardless of the circumstances, join the N-Seals.  You read this and see if this guy should have been able to react correctly:

"...Mark Saylor, 45, a 19-year veteran of the California Highway Patrol, his wife Cleofe, daughter Mahala, 13 and brother-in-law Chris Lastrella, were all killed in a fiery San Diego car accident the evening of August 28, 2009, the San Diego Union Tribune reports. The fatal car crash was apparently caused by a stuck accelerator in the loaned Lexus..."

[BcWoodWorks]

I just thought I would add my opinion, because you older "mechanically inclined" guys sometimes forget that there are those of us who aren't experienced with driving, emergency situations, and proper management of said emergencies. I'm 20 years old, I've had a permit, and drove around a little here and there. Never went back to get my license for one reason or another; and here I am.

That being said; no one has ever taught me how to deal with a stuck accelerator, and I know danG well I wouldn't react right either. Nobody taught me how to counter-act a skid, nor that if you kill your engine you can still steer with a good amount of force. To be honest, I'd flip my lid.

That doesn't make us rookies stupid, nor deserving to die because of a faulty linkage. The fact of the matter is, it's like training Commercial pilots to deal with every possible and impossible scenario imaginable. There's just too much!

I hate driving.......and I hate stupid ideas that aren't properly tested before being implemented and sold to an unready, untrained public.

I'm not saying you guys are wrong, by any means. I'm just saying there are two sides to the "weak gene pool" story.

[Ed_K]

 1984 i bought a new ford ranger pickup. soon after the computer started shutting the engine off. I got used to turning the key wait 10 sec, turn back and enigine would start back up. One day i had rita and my youngest boy with me and it happened, same order but i went to far an locked the wheel. turning off left side of road with a cement truck coming at us. When the adrinalin kicks in u lose control quick. I had been fighting with ford for a fix, after this mishap i parked in front of thr door at dealer an said fix it or u get it thru the doors. They replaced the puter and i drove it for 10yrs. so all vehicals have problems imo

[SwampDonkey]

Kind of brings to mind the Pinto and the Corvair.     The consumer took them off the market, not the company. 

I remember the same, when our provincial Premier was going into the car business and some dude named Bricklin conned him into building cars. What a flop.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bricklin_SV-1

You fella's don't know what goes on up here in backwoods New Brunswick.

[beenthere]

I'll never buy another American made vehicle unless it's a large truck. I switched my fleet of light trucks to Toyota. I wish I'd done that back in 2002. If I buy a car it'll probably be a German car or a Toyota.

I guess this part was made by a US-based company with parts made in CA.

The suspect parts are made by a U.S. supplier, but they are also found in its European-made vehicles, an official with the automaker said Wednesday. Toyota said it hasn’t decided what to do there.

The supplier is CTS Corp., based in Elkhart, Ind., and the problem part was manufactured at its plant in Ontario, Canada, according to a report Toyota handed to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration last week.

[Night Raider]

I got an update from my dealer, they said the CTS pedal is going to be replaced with a Denso pedal, which is another supplier toyota uses.  This makes me wonder if they're both drop in replacements for each other why Toyota goes to the expense of having two separate parts?  I looked up pictures of both and they do look different, my guess is we won't have seen the last of this.

BCwoodworks
I can assure you that you are right and that as a commercial pilot we certainly don't get trained for every situation but the more knowledge we have about the workings of the planes the better chance we have in an emergency, I was talking to someone who thought on an automatic transmission when you hit the brake a 'clutch' also 'was pushed in'.  I've seen very book smart people freeze, but the best pilot I've had the pleasure of flying with and being trained by is also a mechanic (now that's not a very broad sample).

One good thing that may come of this is more drivers will become aware of how to deal with a stuck accelerator in any type of vehicle and hopefully save a few more lives in the future.

[Sprucegum]

BCWoodworks; Since you are smart enough to read and join in the Forestry Forum I have every confidence you will survive   

[DouginUtah]

I wouldn't want to be considered one of those conspiracy theorist nuts but I've heard it said that GM is owned by the Federal government and it was the Federal government which required that Toyota shut down. Do you think this will help GM sales? 

Remember the problem Jeep had a few years ago? Turns out that a lot of the problems were caused by drivers who believed they were stepping on the brake when they had missed the brake and were in fact stepping on the gas. Sometimes the truth is elusive.

[Faron]

I wonder how many "stuck accelerators" were really stuck?  I will bet after possible accelerator problems due to floor mats or whatever were made public, some people used that as a ready made excuse after rear ending another vehicle. Not saying there is no problem, but that would complicate figuring out just what was happening.

[pineywoods]

This situation is not as simple as it seems. It's probably not just a simple case of the pedal getting jammed. On most current vehicles, there is no mechanical linkage from the gas pedal to the engine. Just two wires going from a sensor under the pedal to the engine computer. The computer then controls the fuel injectors. Drive by wire..The sensors can and do get full of dirt, water, carpet fuz, etc. My dodge diesel has 2 separate sensors, both connect to the computer, which then compares the two signals. If they aren't alike, the computer shuts everything down.