"Toyota has also issued some Dukes of Hazzard style maneuvers drivers should use if they're cruising along and the pedal does, in fact, stick, such as shifting into neutral or turning off the ignition (but don't take the key out!). Do they teach that in driver's ed?"-yahoo.com

sign me up! LOL

Yeah I'm guessing econo boxes from Honda and the US are going to have good year.

How on earth does turning the car off or taking it out of gear count as "dukes of hazzard" type maneuvers?

Toyota has really slipped amd fallen hard where quality is concerned. In 2006 I bought a new Tacoma because I believed their quality was above par.
Now I read on-line about the issues Tacomas have with frame rot (850,000 trucks recalled because the frame rots to pieces within a few years, in some cases trucks have broken in half) and while the recall only applies to 1995-2000 model years, several people are compaining about this issue all the way up to 2006 model year (primarily in rust belt states). There was once a time when the body would rot off the frame on these trucks and now the frame rots out from under the body.
There are also several complaints about accelerator pedals sticking on Tacomas and uncommanded vehicle acceleration including the 2006 model that I have. People have written that when it has happened to their trucks it was definitely not the floor mats causing the problem as Toyota originally claimed, but this vehicle is not included in the current recall.
I haven't had any issues with my truck, but I think I'll be practicing the turn the key off but don't remove it while driving thing before I need to do it for real.

Consider the Yahoo.com source!
Anything that involves a "real" car, rather than a computer simulation is "Dukes of Hazard" to them!! :D

Other view
 

Odd, Car and Driver mag (issue I received yesterday) tested several cars and it was only at above 500HP that the brakes couldn't stop the car. And the brakes were surprisingly effective.

They did have several criticisms of the programming of the ECU computer and its sensing that the driver was trying to stop. They wanted the start button delay shortened (it doesn't immediately react lest someone inadvertently bump against it while you are at speed) and for it to react to successive presses as other cars do. And for the ECU to sense that the brakes are pressed and automatically cut the gas being fed to the engine. This in addition to the mats sliding and the pedal itself having defects.

If you think dozens of people being killed isn't proof, well then it is just another conspiracy.

Here is an interesting video:
http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=8980024

Granted, the brakes will stop the car with out-of-control throttle, and granted you can put the engine in reverse or turn off the ignition. However, not everybody is a smart, keenly-aware driver. How about that little old lady down the street? How about soccer mom with 4 screaming kids? How about the idiot talking on the cell phone while merging into the freeway without looking? Okay, it's all their fault, but so what, I still don't want them running into me with their runaway Toyota. Toyota made the problem, they have to fix it.

And the exact quote was, "My advice is, if anybody owns one of these vehicles, stop driving it, take it to the Toyota dealer because they believe they have the fix for it." I don't have a problem with that quote. Stop driving and get it fixed is exactly the right thing to do. This is people twisting statements around for political gain.

http://www.northeastshooters.com/vbulletin/showthread.php/34244-Toyota-Tacoma-Owners!/page2

It obviously is a two-fold problem. one is that it is too easy for people to get a license without any real drivers ed. (I took a several month course for 1 thousand dollars my brother in law just took a test.) So we have many incompetent drivers on the road.

two toyota screwed up. plain and simple. they got people killed and should be held liable up to a certain point.

it only takes half a brain to figure out how to turn off a car. why some of these people did not is beyond me. not only that, the one case where the man called 911 he was an off duty trooper. Im sorry but that is just sad... this is someone who needs to make good decisions in a moments notice on a regular basis to save lives and he couldn't do something as simple as put the car in neutral or shut down the engine????

and if he is supposed to be someone who knows more about defensive driving and all the things about drivers safety imagine your average joe.

I agree that it's a lot of bad engineering, but consider the following:

-It takes 3 seconds to turn off the engine with the stupid trendy push button start that a lot of these Toyotas have. That's a lot of time.
-A lot of cars won't allow you to pop it in neutral with the revs over a certain point (this is to prevent transmission damage when junior learns how fun it is to do neutral drops in mom's Camry)
-Say you manage to get it into neutral with the engine banging off of the limiter... now try to use your brakes. Oh wait, there's no vacuum.
-Ok, now say you figured out how to get the engine off. Ok, now you have no power steering (not that it matters at speed), power brakes, the column might lock, and if you try to restart it, you might have to be in park or neutral.

The one simple, fail safe solution is a brake/gas interlock that always gives priority to the brakes. So even if something does go wrong, when you hit the brakes, the engine power is cut to idle. Maybe bring back functional emergency brakes, but that would make for a lot of rear wheel locking and spinning. Beyond that, put decent brakes on cars. Honda is the same way... I never understood how they can make such incredible cars with severely underrated brakes.

what you say is true. especially about the brakes. but with enough time to call 911 a car in neutral from the get go wouldnt have impacted at 120. He could have tried everything and done all those things and all failed... or that he lost his head and panicked. we will probably never know but i can tell you what my money would be on.

idk... anyone have a lexus they wanna throwin neutral to see what happens?

Yeah, that was just a bad situation. Panic makes people do strange things.

If I recall correctly, my old IS300 had a limit of 4,000 rpm or so in neutral, so I'd assume that anything over that would lock it out if you're already in gear.

That said, the car had incredible overkill brakes from the factory that had no issue overcoming the engine power.

And, if it came down to it, it had this amazing invention called a key that can turn the car off instantly.

It's a seriously misguided notion that NHTSA has pushed the unintended acceleration issue on Toyota in order to help out GM. The LA Times hasn't been good for much lately, but they can be credited with publishing several articles that have raised awareness of the issue. We now know that there is a design issue with the Toyota accelerator pedal position sensor that can cause increased friction and sticking under certain conditions, as they have recalled the affected vehicles for a "shim" installation.

The puzzling part of this is that Toyota doesn't seem to have a rationality check on the accelerator vs brake inputs. I understand that most vehicles with electronic throttle control do check brake apply status vs accelerator pedal apply status. I know for sure that Chrysler ETC vehicles do this, as they largely copied then-partner Mercedes-Benz's strategy when they introduced ETC on the 2003 Hemi. Typically, engine power will not be cut instantaneously if brakes are applied with throttle pedal applied; it may take a couple of seconds simultaneous pedal application to set a rationality DTC and put the ETC system in some sort of limp-in mode with reduced throttle response. I guess that Toyota didn't want to inconvenience their customers with a fault code if they hit both pedals. So much for Toyota's perceived perfection...

Maybe Toyota isn't being treated fairly, but either way, if you give your competition (in this case, a manufacture owned by US taxpayers) a little rope, they'll use it to hang you...

That's a very interesting video, first time I've seen one where the brakes couldn't overcome the engine. Might become a new test I do on every new vehicle I'm considering. BTW, the advice he gave (put it in neutral, brake until stopped, shut engine off) is the right stuff.

If it is a conspiracy
 

how come Japan is recalling vehicles there? You would presume they would be protective of their industry titan.

Seems like everyone agrees there is a problem...or problems...in a surprising number of Toyota models.

Prius headlights totally and unexpectedly fail and brakes fail on rough pavement being the newest revelation and that came out of Japan.

And it also seems that Toyota has a culture of ignoring problems in the pursuit of growth and profit.

It is an interesting test to perform. I posted my results with a '94 Integra on page 1. It ends up you don't need alot of H.P. to overcome the brakes!
Steve

The plot sickens.....


NHTSA looking into complaints of 2009-10 Corolla steering problems:
http://www.leftlanenews.com/nhtsa-looking-into-complaints-of-2009-10-corolla-steering-problems.html