Liar, Liar, Brakes on Fire

Investigators are searching for the flaw in the system that operates Toyota accelerators. They have closely examined all the mechanical, electrical and computerized parts. However, they have not examined the most important of all the parts: The Nut Holding the Wheel and Pushing the Pedals.

Now that all non-human parts have been tested and proven to be working perfectly, there is only one other element remaining: The Driver. The liar behind the wheel. Do drivers have reasons to lie to investigators? Of course. In other words, the one element common to all the cases of unexplained acceleration is the lying drivers.

Toyota should sue them for libel. Proctor & Gamble sued the husband and wife team who publicly claimed P&G executives were devil worshippers.

Meanwhile, James Sikes gave a great pantomime performance of pretending to stand on the brakes of his Prius. But his performance was as believable as the performance of the Colorado parents who claimed their son was adrift in a balloon. They claimed their child had floated off into the sky in a balloon too small to lift the family cat. But people fell for their scam. Now they are in big trouble for their lies. Sikes should start worrying. It would do him a lot of good to recant now, before he's sued by Toyota for damaging the company's reputation with his false claim.

Tests fail to duplicate acceleration problem in Prius

Washington Post
Monday, March 15, 2010

Investigators from Toyota and the government have been unable to duplicate the runaway acceleration in a 2008 Prius that a Southern California man said took him on a 30-mile wild ride last week, according to a draft memo from a congressional panel.

The tests on the Prius -- belonging to San Diego resident James Sikes, 61 -- were conducted in California on Wednesday and Thursday by officials from Toyota and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Also observing the test was a staffer from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which has been investigating Toyota recall problems and heard testimony from top-ranking company officials in recent weeks.

Toyota and the NHTSA allowed the Republican committee staffer to observe the tests and report the findings to both parties on the committee after pressure was applied by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the committee's ranking member. The memo obtained by The Washington Post is a draft of the final report.

The memo was reported over the weekend by the Associated Press.

"On our test drive, the field technician tried to duplicate the same experience that Mr. Sikes experienced," the staffer wrote in the memo. "After about two hours of driving he was unsuccessful. 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 failure to duplicate the incident is not unusual; Toyota has said it has had difficulty duplicating other reported incidents of runaway vehicles. Sikes's attorney, John Gomez, told the Associated Press that the results do not cast doubt on his client's story and that Sikes is not trying to profit from the incident.

Issa spokesman Kurt Bardella disagreed, saying Sunday that "these findings certainly raise new questions surrounding the veracity of the sequence of events that has been reported by Mr. Sikes."

Sikes reported last week that he was unable to get his Prius to stop as it reached speeds of 94 mph even as he pressed both feet on the brake. That part of Sikes's story was verified by the technicians.

"The investigators removed the front tires from the car and a handful of brake dust fell out," the memo reads. "Visually checking the brake pads and rotor it was clearly visible that there was nothing left."

The congressional memo quotes Toyota's David Justo, identified as the company's expert on hybrids, as saying the Prius was designed in such a way that it will shut down if the gas pedal is pushed to the floor and the brakes are applied.


"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," Justo is quoted as saying.

Sikes and his lawyer also witnessed last week's tests on his vehicle. Records show that Sikes filed for bankruptcy two years ago with $700,000 in debt, but has said repeatedly since the incident last week that he seeks no money from Toyota. Sikes called 911 from his runaway vehicle and was finally able to stop his car, he said, after a police cruiser pulled alongside and shouted instructions over a loudspeaker.

On Wednesday, another Toyota driver reported a runaway Prius, this one a 2005 model, which police said struck a stone wall, causing minor injuries to the driver.

The NHTSA has identified 52 deaths in instances of runaway Toyota acceleration. The company has said all along that the problem is caused by mechanical, not electronic, issues. As such, Toyota has recalled more than 6 million vehicles to fix what it calls floor-mat entrapment and sticky gas pedals. However, the NHTSA is investigating Toyota's electronics, including its electronic throttle control system, and Toyota has hired an outside consultant to do the same.

The congressional memo says that the NHTSA bought the gas pedal, throttle body and two on-board computers from Sikes's Prius for $2,500 and plans to investigate them further.

James Psyches Out Toyota

James Sikes? James psyches out the gullible media. He said he grabbed the gas pedal with his hand and it would not move. Lie Number One.

He said he was afraid to shift the transmission into neutral because he believed the car would flip. Lie Number Two.

He told the 9/11 dispatcher that his brakes were almost burned out. Lie Number Three.

Did the police administer a sobriety test? A sanity test?

Runaway Prius driver: Brakes were 'almost burned'

Runaway Prius driver, patrol officer recount burning brakes as Toyota reputation suffers blow

EL CAJON, Calif. (AP) -- 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.