Is Satan controlling your car?

[Chuck]

Playing devil's advocate here, I ask: If you crashed your car, wouldn't you rather blame it on a mysterious, satanic sticking gas pedal than on your own dumb driving? Laying the blame on a manufacturer cover-up is too easy.

Mark Vaughn - AUTOWEEK - Mar 3, 2010

Or as Flip Wilson used to say: "The Devil made me do it" - at convenient times. --Ed.

In this post-Tiger Woods media era, as Toyota shovels out equal piles of mea culpas and engineering fixes for possibly sticky gas pedals, NHTSA continues issuing safety recalls for all kinds of vehicles about which the general, hysterical news media seem to care not one bit.

There are about 600 NHTSA recalls a year. NHTSA says that since 1966, it and its predecessor agencies have recalled "more than 390 million cars, trucks, buses, recreational vehicles, motorcycles and mopeds, as well as 46 million tires, 66 million pieces of motor-vehicle equipment and 42 million child safety seats to correct safety defects." That's safety defects, not paint blemishes or glovebox rattles. That's stuff that could kill you or those around you... [Read More]

[drimportracing]

Sloppy designs.

Toyota failed in functionality and intuitive simplicity in regards to the On/Off button, gas pedal, throttle control. These parts are made better and safer by suppliers for other manufacturers, most often the exact same suppliers as Toyota.

What I mean is for example an On/Off button that is difficult to turn off while in an emergency. Failure in intuitive simplicity.

It would seem quite the coincidence that one manufacturer has had all these complaints/failures in design that it wasn't just sloppy management allowing sloppy designs.

No supernatural demon involved. Just laziness, complacency and greed. There is no defense for this behavior. There is acceptance, accountability and improvement. No excuses for Toyota. Fix the problems and let's move on. Don't make excuses for their failures. - Dale

[Chuck]

The button may have been part of the attempt to be futuristic without thinking this completely through. I like a high-tech dash, but not just for the sake of being different - it has to be better.

[Butterfly Mage]

The intriguing thing is that the Feds aren't doing anything about banning SUVs even though rollover kills a lot more people each year than sticky gas pedals.

[xcel]

Hi All:

___While many may blame everybody including the boogeyman; it still comes down to an accident and a busted vehicle(s) from the impact. Whether from poor design or driver error (most can be blamed on the latter of course ), if cars and people were perfect, there would be no accidents, right?

___Let us all just hope that our vehicles continue to become safer because I am more than happy to drive a modern day wonder vs. what we could be driving! Would you rather drive a 1990 anything loaded with what at the time was the safest HW available for its time or one of today’s vehicles with 6 + air bags, TC, SC, ABS, EBFD, BA and high strength steels around the occupant cage with ever softer designed steels through the front and the rear?

___Manuals as thick as Bibles just to work the Voice activated NAVI is to the point of being ridiculous but driving the car has essentially remains the same as it was 100 years. You turn the key or push the button (early 20th century cars had buttons too!), shift into D, push the Accelerator to go and the brake to stop. Except for all the safety designed in, there is little difference and accidents will continue. Just that a lot less damage to the occupants will occur with today’s wonders vs. what we used to drive.



___Good Luck

___Wayne

[lightfoot]

Saabs have a very atypical location for their ignition key switch: between the front seats to the right of the parking brake lever and just in front of it. I don't know of any other cars that use this location. Saab has done this for years. It certainly isn't a spot that most people would grab for in an emergency. And yet no one complains about this (of if they do I've missed it!). Certainly it's a more obscure location than the placement of the pushbuttons in various Toyotas, which are in plain view.

I get the feeling that some people just like to scream at Toyota for whatever reason and will seize upon anything Toyota does differently.

[disclaimer: I've never owned a Toyota, my parents had an early Land Cruiser which had ring-seating problems, my sister owns a RAV4 which I'm not crazy about - too bloated, but I like Prii, so on balance I'm neutral on Toyotas. Unpleasant shopping experiences left me with an active dislike for the Toyota dealers in my area.]

[Right Lane Cruiser]

It is about time people started taking active responsibility for the safety and well-being of both themselves and the surrounding public. This is about a lot more than driving, but driving is one of the most dangerous things the general public does on a regular basis. Society has simply become way too complacent and insular in attitude!

Sorry. I guess I'm just tired of excuses for bad behavior, poor judgment, and childish menacing of others. "Foolproof" never is because the ones causing problems are too smart.

[MaxxMPG]

I remember reading that Saab chose the console location for the ignition key after studying accident injuries where the driver's knee was gouged by the key during a frontal crash. The low and center key means it will not contact any body parts in crash events.
Porsche, and I think some early Pontiacs, have the ignition on the dash on the left side, where most people would reach for the headlight switch.

I'm with Wayne on the endorsement of modern technology. I compared MSRP of cars from 1970 and 2010, and adjusted for inflation, a 1970 "Family Sedan" would cost about $16k in today's dollars. For that, you get power steering and brakes, an AM radio, bias ply tires that lasted about 20k miles, vinyl seats, lap belts and separate shoulder belts (that nobody ever used) hanging from the roof by a nylon loop, three on the tree or for $1500 more (in 2010 dollars), a simple 2 or 3 speed automatic. Real world MPG was in the 8 to 14 range, with 1970's gasoline costing only a bit less than what we're paying today. A 2010 "Family Sedan" - using a 2011 Sonata as an example because it is classed as a "large car", is $20k, or $4000 more. For that, you get AM/FM/XM and CD, all the airbags, ABS with EBD, stability and traction control, all season (less need for snow tires) 50k miles radial tires, and even soft (and more durable than the old vinyl) cloth seating. You get power windows, locks, and mirrors. More to break down? Maybe, but far less likely to break down than the 1970 equivalent. Heck, you even get a stainless steel exhaust system on a 2010 car. The 1970 car needed a muffler after 2 years, if not the entire rusted exhaust system.

Then consider service. The 1970 car needed annual tuneups - adjust idle speed and mixture, replace plugs, points, condenser, set timing and dwell, while today's cars have a 100k plug change interval. Adjust the drum brakes, repacking the front wheel bearings after working on the front brakes. Change the oil every 4000 miles instead of 7500-10000 miles. Rebuild the carburetor every four years or so. Change the ATF every three years, where today some transmissions never need fluid changes in normal driving. How much $$$ (and natural resources) are we saving with the longer maintenance intervals???

And finally, consider that the extra $4k not only saves you more than $4k in service, and gives you more creature comforts than what we could dream of in 1970, but it also greatly improves the chances that you will simply walk away from a collision that would cost you several times as much in hospital care and physical therapy and loss of wages back in 1970.

I can deal with Satan operating my gas pedal. I would rather not have to learn how to walk again after some drunk careens into my car. As safe as our cars are, and as safe and alert as we can be as drivers, we are still putting our lives on the line every time we turn the key. Remembering that fact makes us more attentive and careful drivers, but we are still a small minority compared to what's out there on the road, whether or not they have a demon in their PCM.