Runaway Toyotas and Lexuses, hazards of cars getting too complicated

[Victor]

Today's LA Times has an article about people being killed because their Toyota or Lexus suddenly accelerated full throttle to over 100 mph and couldn't be stopped. The driver in one family was an 18 year veteran highway patrolman who had been through high speed driving classes but couldn't stop his car when it accelerated to 120 mph and couldn't be stopped. He finally crashed into another car and rolled off an embankment, killing himself and his whole family. In some of the cases the floor mats were blamed as having moved and got stuck under the accelerator. In another case a driver drove for 20 miles at 100mph and couldn't slow his vehicle down and finally crashed into another car, killing the other cars driver. He had burned out his brakes trying to stop the car. But investigation has turned up the real causes. The pushbutton starting systems require the driver to hold the button down for a full three seconds to shut off the engine, an awful long time in an emergency panic situation, during which time the car would have traveled 528 feet. The good old ignition key is much safer. Another problem is these transmissions that can be shifted manually. They have a complicated pattern to shift through to shift into neutral which can be too hard for a paniced driver to remember. A third problem is at full throttle the vacuum boost for the power brakes goes away, requiring the driver to exert a force of 250 pounds on the brakes to try to stop the car, too much for a typical person. With computer controlled engines and transmissions and brakes who knows what strange things can happen if the computer fails.

[Infinitiguy19]

Thats why I hate Toyota and most new cars. You would think that they would really test the cars before sending them out to kill people. But like Q45Tech said 1990-1993 were the years some of the best cars came out.

[MinisterofDOOM]

I'm sure emergency cutoffs will be mandated by the feds following this problem. It's stupid that it will have been necessary for that to happen to get them installed in cars. They should have been there from the beginning, clearly labelled and easy to reach. I sure as hell don't want a car I can't turn off instantly.

As for the shifter...gated shifters are EASIER to put in neutral from drive, and I can say this from comparative experience. There's no shift lock button to press (with a few exceptions, most of them older, like the G50). Just move the lever. The gates make things simpler, actually, since you're not fighting to slide to a single linear position.

I'd take the lockless gated shifter in the 6th gen Maxima over the traditional shifter in my 3rd gen Maxima any day when it comes to emergency neutral shifting. Even the Q is better, lock button notwithstanding, because the gate makes it easier to just fling it into neutral instead of looking and "aiming" the lever when panicked.

[Skibane]

Quote » The pushbutton starting systems require the driver to hold the button down for a full three seconds to shut off the engine, an awful long time in an emergency panic situation[/quote]Yes, it is. On the other hand, Toyota probably did it that way in order to prevent drivers from killing the engine by accidentally bumping the pushbutton:

Dead engine = sudden, unexpected loss of power steering = possible loss of vehicle control

The problem with installing an emergency engine shutoff switch is that nobody would be accustomed to using it during normal driving, and thus probably wouldn't have the presence of mind to use it during an emergency.

IMO, part of the current problem lies in using a pushbutton instead of a "hard" on/off switch. Pushbuttons are prone to being pressed accidentally; rotary switches not so much...

[Infinitiguy19]

IMO, part of the current problem lies in using a push button instead of a "hard" on/off switch. Push buttons are prone to being pressed accidentally; rotary switches not so much...

Tell that to the people who try to start there cars when there still on (I am talking about the quiet G50's).

But I wouldn't be shocked to find out that insurance won't pay out because they were going above the speed limit.

[MinisterofDOOM]

Tell that to the people who try to start there cars when there still on (I am talking about the quiet G50's).

That's not even the same thing. If you try and start a running car, you are indeed TRYING to turn that knob. Intentionally. Not the same as bumping a button my mistake.

[Skibane]

Mounting the pushbutton inside a really, really deep recess would also prevent it from being pushed accidentally...

Maybe they should just abandon the pushbutton/key fob idea entirely, and use a thumbprint scanner instead. Seems to work OK on computers -

[MinisterofDOOM]

I prefer a plain old key, to be honest. If I'm going to be actuating something, it might as well be something solidly mechanical that's less prone to failure or malfunction. I never saw the problem with keys anyway. Lack of push button start means one less thing cluttering my console and more control at my fingertips. No, it doesn't look cool (well, actually, our old Infiniti keys are pretty damn cool looking). I don't need it to look cool. I need it to work, perfectly, every time.

[aces805]

Copied and pasted from LA Times website:

Toyota's runaway-car worries may not stop at floor mats

A fatal accident in San Diego raises the question: Might a vehicle's complex electronic features make it hard for drivers to react quickly when accelerating out of control?

The 2009 Lexus ES 350 shot through suburban San Diego like a runaway missile, weaving at 120 miles an hour through rush hour freeway traffic as flames flashed from under the car.

At the wheel, veteran California Highway Patrol Officer Mark Saylor desperately tried to control the 272-horsepower engine that was roaring at full throttle as his wife, teenage daughter and brother-in-law were gripped by fear.

"We’re in trouble. . . . There’s no brakes," Saylor's brother-in-law Chris Lastrella told a police dispatcher over a cellphone. Moments later, frantic shrieks filled the car as it slammed into another vehicle and then careened into a dirt embankment, killing all four aboard.

The tragedy Aug. 28 was at least the fifth fatal crash in the U.S. over the last two years involving runaway Toyota and Lexus vehicles made by Toyota Motor Corp. It is also among hundreds of incidents of sudden acceleration involving the company's vehicles that have been reported to Toyota or the federal government, according to an examination of public records by The Times.

Toyota has blamed the incidents -- apart from those caused by driver error -- on its floor mats, asserting that if they are improperly installed they can jam open the accelerator pedal. A month after the Saylor crash, Toyota issued its biggest recall in company history, affecting 3.8 million vehicles in model years as far back as 2004. But auto safety experts believe there may be a bigger problem with Toyota vehicles than simply the floor mats.

The Saylor crash and others like it across the country, they say, point to a troubling possibility: that Toyota's ignition, transmission and braking systems may make it difficult for drivers to combat sudden or unintended accelerations and safely recover, regardless of their cause.

Toyota is not the only car company to be hit with reports of sudden acceleration, but the San Diego fatality, the massive recall that came in its wake and Toyota's position as the world's largest automaker have focused intense scrutiny on the company by federal safety regulators and others.

"This is Toyota's Firestone," said Sean Kane, president of Safety Research & Strategies, a Rehoboth, Mass., auto safety consulting firm. He was referring to the public relations disaster that hit Bridgestone/Firestone almost 10 years ago over defective tires that caused a series of fatal accidents.

"Right now," Kane said, "when you say sudden acceleration, Toyota is it."

In addition to Saylor and Lastrella, the San Diego crash killed Saylor's wife, Cleofe Lastrella, and their only child, 13-year-old daughter Mahala.

Signaling how seriously the company takes the incident, Toyota President Akio Toyoda made an apology this month while meeting with the Japanese news media.

"Customers bought our cars because they thought they were the safest," he said. "But now we have given them cause for grave concern. I can't begin to express my remorse."

One remedy being considered by Toyota implicitly acknowledges what critics have been saying for almost 10 years: that the company's highly computerized engine control system lacks a fail-safe mechanism that can quickly extinguish sudden acceleration events, whether they are caused by floor mats, driver errors or even unknown defects in the electronic control system, as alleged in some lawsuits.

Reports of sudden acceleration in Toyota vehicles has resulted in nine federal inquiries and investigations since 2000, two of which determined that there were improperly positioned floor mats. Another found a loose part in Sienna minivans, and yet another probe remains open. The rest were dismissed with no findings of equipment problems.

In most Toyota vehicles, the floor mats are held in place by two clips, which can come loose. Toyota offers a standard carpeted floor mat and an optional rubber version. Both mats have a cutout around the accelerator pedal. The vehicle driven by Saylor had a rubber floor mat, but Toyota said it was for a different model of Lexus.

Since the San Diego crash, Toyota has urged all its customers to remove their floor mats as an interim fix. But longer term, Toyota spokesman Brian Lyons said, the company is examining significant design changes.

One possible remedy is to redesign the accelerator pedal to make it harder to get caught by a floor mat, he said. Another potential fix, he said, involves reprogramming the engine's computer to automatically cut power when a driver brakes while the gas pedal is depressed.

Such fail-safes are needed, auto experts say, because sudden acceleration can cause drivers to panic, diminishing their ability to take swift action -- such as shutting off the engine or shifting into neutral.

If anybody should have known how to stop an out-of-control car, it was Saylor, who was trained in emergency and high-speed driving as a 19-year CHP veteran. But a close look at the Lexus ES 350 raises questions about whether the car's very design may have compromised Saylor's skills.

One obvious line of defense is to simply shut off the engine, a step that may not be intuitive on the ES 350. The car has a push-button start system, activated by the combination of a wireless electronic fob carried by the driver and a button on the dashboard.

But once the vehicle is moving, the engine will not shut off unless the button is held down for a full three seconds -- a period of time in which Saylor's car would have traveled 528 feet. A driver may push the button repeatedly, not knowing it requires a three-second hold.

"When you are dealing with an emergency, you can't wait three seconds for the car to respond at 120 miles an hour," said Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Auto Safety.

The ES 350 Saylor was driving that day was a loaner provided to him by Bob Baker Lexus when he took his family's Lexus in for servicing. It's unclear whether Saylor's own car had the same feature or whether he was aware of the shutdown procedure. Bob Baker Lexus did not return calls.

That procedure is explained deep in the owners manual. In a text box labeled "! Caution," Toyota tells owners, "Do not touch the 'power' switch while driving." But under the warning it adds, "If you have to make an emergency stop, press and hold the 'power' switch for more than three seconds."

Lyons, the Toyota spokesman, said: "I think the text is valid. What I'd prefer it to say is to explain that you'll lose power assist [for] brakes and steering if you do so."

The shutdown procedure reflects a larger problem: As auto manufacturers adopt increasingly complex electronic features, it becomes more difficult to explain how they work, said Paul Green, a human factors expert at the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute. A study by the institute found that in some cases, owners manuals would have to run up to 1,000 pages to fully disclose everything.

"In the past, systems were pretty simple," Green said. "You put a key in the lock and turn it. Now we have a fob with functionality."

The other common defense tactic advised by experts is to simply shift a runaway vehicle into neutral. But the ES 350 is equipped with an automatic transmission that can mimic manual shifting, and its shift lever on the console has a series of gates and detents that allow a driver to select any of at least four forward gears.

The arrangement of those gear selections could make it difficult to shift from a forward gear directly into neutral in a panic situation, Toyota spokesman Lyons acknowledged.

"I think it's possible to get the shifter confused, but I can't be sure that's what happened" in San Diego, Lyons said. "You'd be surprised how many people around here [Toyota] don't know what the neutral position is for."

The most obvious impulse for any driver experiencing sudden acceleration is to apply the brakes. But when an engine goes to full throttle and is speeding at 120 mph, the brake might not stop the car.

The ES 350 and most other modern vehicles are equipped with power-assisted brakes, which operate by drawing vacuum power from the engine. But when an engine opens to full throttle, the vacuum drops, and after one or two pumps of the brake pedal the power assist feature disappears.

As a result, a driver would have to apply enormous pressure to the brake pedal to stop the car, and if the throttle was wide open might not be able to stop it at all, safety experts say.

"I don't think you can stop a car going 120 mph and an engine at full throttle without power assist," said Ditlow, the safety center director.

Indeed, a 2007 study by federal highway safety officials showed that braking distance and force on a Lexus ES 350 increased fivefold when the throttle was wide open. And evidence introduced in sudden acceleration trials suggests that it can take up to 225 pounds of pressure on a brake pedal to arrest a runaway vehicle, far more than most drivers can muster from a seated position, said Edgar "Hike" Heiskell, a Charleston, W.Va., attorney who is suing Toyota over a fatal acceleration accident in Flint, Mich.

Lyons acknowledged that the vacuum can be depleted when an engine throttle is wide open, leaving the drivers without power-assisted brakes.

"There's a [federal] standard where you have to be able to stop the car without power-assisted brakes, but obviously I don't think it includes situations where the throttle is wide open," he added.

Drivers in other crashes also found it difficult to rein in a runaway Toyota. Guadalupe Gomez of Redwood City said he was held hostage for 20 miles on a Bay Area freeway by a 2007 Camry traveling more than 100 mph.

Gomez was unable to turn off the engine or shift into neutral and then burned out his brakes before slamming into another car and killing that driver, said attorney Louis Franecke, who represented that victim's family.

The San Diego crash is still under investigation by the San Diego County Sheriff's Department and the CHP; until the probe is complete, neither agency is commenting.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, meanwhile, says it has an open investigation into sudden acceleration events involving Toyota vehicles.

[tx05q45]

Drive by wire throttles require only one change to fix this... hitting the brakes disengages the throttle!

[audtatious]

Uhm, what? I have drive by wire and can brake/accelerate at the same time without a problem.

What's wrong with putting the car in neutral? Toyota locks that out or something? I know in the G I can simply manually downshift and let it bounce off the rev limiter if I wanted to.

[Victor]

As the article pointed out some people don't even know what neutral is for. Also, during a panic situation where your car suddenly accelerated to 100 mph on a crowded freeway or surface street try to remember to shift through a complicated pattern while trying to dodge cars in front of you.One thing the article doesn't mention is that turning off the key in many cars will lock the steering wheel, which would be another problem. And as someone already pointed out turning off the engine will cause loss of power steering and power brakes.Which cars have fly by wire, I want to avoid ever buying one of them, especially if its made by Infiniti who is famous for cold solder joints in their electronics and electrical.

[audtatious]

Only some cars have "complicated patterns" via gated shifters. My 2k2 Maxima had a gated shifter and if you were not used to it I would agree with you. I know of no Infiniti's today with gated shifters as you simply move the lever to the left and use + / -

Any manufacturer can have cold solder joints, it's not limited to Nissan. Looks like you will be staying with cheaper or older cars to avoid drive by wire designs.

[seldomseen]

Dang!!! Sounds like Toyota/Lexus is getting just as effed up as Nissan/Infiniti!!

[Skibane]

Quote »Another potential fix, he said, involves reprogramming the engine's computer to automatically cut power when a driver brakes while the gas pedal is depressed.

[/quote]Oh, nice - You step on the brake to keep the car from rolling backward on an incline while applying some throttle, and the engine dies!

Also, if the engine computer is responsible for causing the runaway condition in the first place, why would they want to rely on this same engine computer as the fail-safe?

Quote »evidence introduced in sudden acceleration trials suggests that it can take up to 225 pounds of pressure on a brake pedal to arrest a runaway vehicle, far more than most drivers can muster from a seated position

[/quote]Under those circumstances, I would be applying enough pressure with BOTH feet to push the brake pedal clear through the floorboard!

[MinisterofDOOM]

Oh, nice - You step on the brake to keep the car from rolling backward on an incline while applying some throttle, and the engine dies!!

Exactly! The answer is LESS computer-override garbage, not MORE. Give me the damn control of my car back and I won't have ANY of these issues.

[Victor]

There was followup article in today's LA Times saying an examination of the crashed vehicle shows the brakes and rotors were worn down and overheated and almost destroyed during the panic attempt to stop the runaway car. They also found the rubber floor mat bonded onto the accelerator pedal. The driver's brother in law managed to make a frenzied cell phone call in which he said the car had no brakes just before it crashed and burned. If he had time to make a cell phone call wonder why no one ever thought of shifting to neutral, maybe they did and if the transmission was also fly by wire controlled and maybe they couldn't.

[Skibane]

Quote »If he had time to make a cell phone call wonder why no one ever thought of shifting to neutral[/quote]Yeah, or maybe just reaching down and moving the floormat?

[Victor]

Wonder if the floor mat explanation is a cover up of a worse problem? The mat would have to somehow get on top of the accelerator pedal and push it all the way down to the floor to accelerate to 120 mph. I could see it getting bunched up under one of the pedals keeping them from being pressed down, but its a stretch to say the mat could get on top of the pedal and push it down. It usually takes a bit of force to put the pedal to the metal. Seems like a possibility would be a malfunctioning cruise control.