Prius driver leads police on high speed chase

More importantly what performance mods did he have and what ECU was he using? That's a very special GenII.

 

Yes I am sure the police lied about the speed the prius was going. I doubt the driver modified the prius enough to go that fast. The press then reported whatever the police said without even thinking about it.

It is possible, or even likely that the police did hit 120 mph while chasing this drugged out prius driver, but that doesn't mean the car went that fast. Here is an older report of a drugged out prius driver caught speeding, but this time at a mechanically possible 100 mph.


Al Gore's son busted for drugs in hybrid car| Reuters

 

Fortunately no one was injured. Hopefully the driver will get the professional help that he needs.

 

...this proves the automotive magazine critics correct: the Prius is slow boring car.

I do not know about 120 MPH but this is not the first 100+ MPH police chase of a Prius. Not recommended of course but shows something.

 

The car is supposed to be limited to IIRC 105 mph, those that have made the prius go much faster have to change the ECU or give it bigger tires, and tires big enough for 120 mph would need large modifications.

Let's face it 105 mph is more than fast enough for a drugged out driver to go before getting caught by police, and these are the main reports - drugs + speed.

 

I don't know about the Gen II, but the Gen III is actually capable of 135 MPH with the speed limiter disabled Stock, it is speed limited to 115 MPH and it can do that with relative ease.

The main issue with high speeds like that that IMO is the suspension. Upgrade to the Prius Plus wheels and suspension, and you get a car a lot more stable at high speeds. Still a little scary though, compared to something like a BMW.

 

Do you really think that drugged out speeder had done proper modifications in the prius? I doubt it. The easy thing, the likely thing is the police simply lied to the press, and the press reported it. Come on. As slate explains 120 mph just is unlikely unless they reported, and they would, a modified prius.

Al Gore III's Prius could go 100 mph?

With upgraded wheels and tires, my gen III prius handling was quite squirely at 85 mph with wind, I would hate to see what a stock gen II would do at 120 mph, which is likely one reason they are limited.

 

He was probably going the max the car could go. The cops estimate it by how fast they are chasing him in their own cars, in which they likely topped out at about 120 mph, close enough to be credible.

It's not like they had time to get out the radar gun kit to test his actual speed.

 

The GenII will do 115 all day long, or at least a few hours until it runs out of petrol. Interestingly, he could probably outrun the police at 115 assuming no other police were available to come in with full tanks as the "older" ones moved out to refill.

 

Can you point to something that says it will do 115? Try it. The articles that came out when gore was caught speeding said the car was electronically limited to 105. I just checked car and driver and that said limited to 104. Perhaps the speedometer in your car just reads 10 mph over accurate.

Let us stop exaggerating! Please it does no one any good. The articles about prii modified to go at higher speeds, all talked about the limitations built into the car.

Police chases at over 100 mph often injure innocent drivers, and are less safe than letting the speeder go. Police cars have radios. They have cameras. Police can drop strips to flatten tires ahead of cars, which is what they did to this gun wielding drugged criminal. But no a prius is not going to outrun a police cruiser unless the officer is an exceptionally bad driver.

 

I am fine if you want to bend over backwards and give the police a pass at innocently reporting a number too high.

We do know that the reporter, which should not be given a pass, should have known to ask "how did you know he was going 120?" We get fake stories in the paper all the time. I just wanted to point it out. If the officer was off by 15mph, how do we know he wasn't off by 30? Other than knowing the speed was wrong, this is not a prius story.

This is the story of a drug user recklessly driving his car. We can hope that either he gets off drugs, or if not that his license suspension keeps him out of the drivers seat for a longer period of time. The fake "120 mph chase" is just fake sensationalism.

 

http://media.caranddriver.com/files/toyota-prius2004-toyota-prius-specs.pdf

http://media.caranddriver.com/files/honda-civic-hybrid-vs-toyota-echo-vw-jetta-gls-tdi-toyota-priusthe-frugalympics.pdf

 

Altogether a boring story. I was hoping for "Prius gets away as cops run out of fuel"

 

to get secrect mods go to priuschat shop and put in the code "speed racer"

 

Yeah, I've done it. 105mph is not hard at all. 115mph is not hard either. My 2006 goes 115mph, I've driven it that way in a "car train" for many miles through Utah/Colorado with other vehicles. The "articles" are always correct, aren't they... Not even close. At 115mph on the speedo, the GPS was saying the car was going 112mph-ish.

 

The CVPI (Crown Vic Police Interceptor) is equipped with a calibrated speedo, so they can pace him to get a reading. Ford says top speed is 131mph, but somewhere around 125 is probably closer to reality.

I think the report of 120 mph is probably just another inaccurate story by our local Sac news.

 

I always tell people that the Prius is a versatile car.

 

Sigh. If a cop is chasing someone going 115, they would have to accelerate to a speed *faster* than 115 in order to catch up to them. The police report the speeds at which their police cars go, since as mentioned, they have no way of knowing the actual speed of the perpetrator. The speed at which the police cruisers go for a given chase is what is reported in the police report. It's also what is recorded in the police cruiser data recorder, if equipped. Further, this is what is reported to any news agencies as well. All very standard operating procedure.

This is not some fake story. It's quite plausible that the speeds in this chase were 120 MPH.

 

I regularly pace a marathon training group, at a failry slow pace on long runs (9:30/mi). If I am hanging back to encourage some back runners, I later pick it up to about a 6:30 pace to go to the front. I would never ever tell my front runners that may be running around 9 minute miles that they were going 6:30, even though that is how fast I would have run to catch up What sounds false is the report that the prius was going 120 miles per hour, even with toasters story that he regularly runs car trains? not sure what that is? at over 110 mph (which is faster than toyota says their electronic limit is), and would be 35 mph over the highest speed limit in colorado, which I consider extremely reckless.

Let's go with what my complaint is, the complaint is there is a clear exageration in this story that the author and/or police were trying to sensationalize. I have no doubt a crime was committed, and this has to do with the driver not the car that he was driving.

Don't believe everything you read.

Here are some guys testing top speed on a 2006 prius

They get to 109 indicated, which is likely lower if the speedometer is anything like the gen III.