breaking news, one dead in prius crash

Is this another instance of brake failure????

 

Four question marks makes this look like a troll's question.

A solo accident on that bridge at 6:30am? I'm going to guess "driver inattention" as the probable cause.

 

I saw that on KTVU this morning just as I was leaving for work.

They were showing footage from the news chopper of a silver prius plowed into the back of some kind of big rig truck on a side lane that is parallel to the bridge lanes.

There were clearly no skid marks leading up the crash... my guess is that the driver was asleep, incapacitated, or suicidal. Brake failure could be an explanation.

Hopefully they'll release some more details about the driver, eventually.

 

Was it republican road rage? Perhaps a UFO tractor beam? I know, it was the eletromagnetic field of the hybrid synergy drive pulling toward the electrical truck.

Sorka, has anybody EVER reported brake failure at high speed on a Prius? Brake failure happens on all cars, thankfully very rarely. This should not be news. People die in car accidents all the time, one every 12 minutes here in the USA alone, oh but this one was in a prius, so we put it on the front page. meh.

 

i nearly fell asleep on my way home at 6:30 this morning...
must have been the brakes. not sleep deprivation or overwork.

 

Looks more like a case of driver failure - "running into a parked truck in a parking lot"

P.S. The second link in the original posting to the Mercury News shows pictures, but not of this accident. Those pictures were of another accident last September (2007). I can't figure out why they would include pictures of another accident of nearly a year ago in this news story.

Keith

 

That second article seemed to say the collision happened in a parking lto but then goes on to say that there were no traffic issues after the vehicle was removed from the roadway? How does that make sense?

 

.

 

Well, there wouldn't be any skid marks because of the ABS.

Kind if ironic hitting and electricians truck.

I haven't heard of any brake failure in a Prius, let alone something unusual or defective.

 

F8L - the parking lot on the San Mateo Bridge when approached from the Eastbound direction is almost like taking an off-ramp that does not curve. It would be pretty easy to blast into that area and wreck if you are not paying attention. The parking lot is actually a straight shot through so if your brakes had failed you can shoot right through it and be back on the main roadway (it's a left hand exit from the roadway and re-enters on the left side). A Pit lane, basically.

Pull it up on google maps and in satellite mode you can get a good idea of what I'm trying to describe.

When I first saw the news item I thought they had impacted someone who was backing out of their parking slot. Since the article does state that the truck was not occupied this is highly unlikely. The Prius driver was likely impaired, sleeping, txting or doing some other activity that unfortunately caused an accident that the Prius was unable to protect them from.

 

X2. Sounds more like a medical condition or falling asleep at the wheel. Curious if there were skid marks? Really, anything is speculation since the story has zero details.

Mike

 

I saw a small picture on the KTVU website this morning, it actually looked like a silver Pine Mica prius (run into the back of a "Cal Trans Orange" colored truck.

Zip details (which I find all too depressing on these News media websites).

 

Yea, but since I have 228 posts, you know that's not the case.

 

Yea, on the very first ABS systems available in the mid to late eighties. The modulation now occurs hundreds of times a second, so you barely even feel it. In the early early days, people would get freaked out because they'd stomp the brake and when the abs activated, the pedal would pulse violently 2 or 3 times a second and they'd let off. In the early 90's, there were all these educational videos running around telling people to make sure to keep pressing the brake pedal despite the pulsing. Today's ABS systems don't provide that kind of feedback anymore because they are ultra quick, so no skidding on modern ABS brakes.

 

Somehow they'll blame this on the Prius being too quiet.

Question: Is there such a thing as an elderly white male child?

 

Hi All,

I had to beep at an elderly white male who fell asleep at a stop light on the way home. You know, Friday does that to people.

 

This thread and others document the same brake failure:

http://priuschat.com/forums/prius-main-forum/19415-brake-failure-2005-prius.html#post237891

Additionally, if you got to Home | National Highway Traffic Safety Administration(NHTSA) | U.S. Department of Transportation and search Prius's from 2004 to 2007, there are dozens of reported cases where the all have the same failure...that is the pedal is pushed all the way to the floor and the car doesn't brake. It's happend at slow speeds and moderate speeds. There's no evidence to suggest it's only a slow speed occurance. In about half the cases, it results in the Prius hitting another vehicle.

 

Extreme Hypermiling? Trying to cut through without slowing down for other traffic might be a possibility..