Gas Station Fire blamed on Brakes

As for the first responders knowing what to do, this was supposedly in the big city of Tacoma, Washington. Not some backwoods town where they don't get education. I suspect it's like someone else said: There's no need to risk anything to tow the wet, burned car out. Let the dealer do it.

I also suspect he's an elderly driver who pressed the gas pedal by mistake. This sadly happens very often. Two weeks ago, we had an elderly couple drive right off a cliff into the ocean in Pismo Beach. The driver was pulling into a parking spot at the hotel/restaurant when he just jammed the accelerator, climbed the curb, went through the chain-link fence, and over the cliff into the ocean. He's recovering; she was killed.

Here in my town we've had a woman smash the front "porch" of the hardware store three times, doing the same thing. I think she's since stopped driving.

 

Unfortunately, the EDR doesn't have a sensor to detect the position
of the driver's floor mat, which is maybe the *only* plausible factor
in this story if the go-pedal was indeed stuck down. Pity, the EDR
is right *next* to the problem area, too.
.
The emergency responders in that town need to go download all the
hybrid vehicle info that Toyota puts up there FOR FREE to try and
avoid the situation where everyone thinks only Toyota can deal with
powering down a prius... sigh.
.
_H*

 

He could have avoided having to crash his car into a gash station to make it catch fire all to gather by buying an older ford truck or suv those things can just spontaneously combust no "confusing" hybrid system needed. Jeez what some people will do for publicity.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(JimN @ Mar 7 2007, 06:39 PM) [snapback]401985[/snapback]</div>

ha ha ha ha :lol:

 

This is exactly what happened. He had the gas pinned the whole time and thought he had the brake. There have been hundreds of complaints filed with the NHTSA about intintended acceleration across dozens of models of cars, EVERY ONE has been found to be driver error.

To echo Rick's story one of my coworkers has a client who'se aunt and uncle came home from dinner one night to find their trash can had rolled out into the driveway. So, the aunt gets out to move it. The Husband's foot slips from the brake to the gas and he kills her. Tragic, but these things happen.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(vtie @ Mar 7 2007, 10:24 AM) [snapback]401530[/snapback]</div>

It might be a an instinct of that type of humans, a mechanism in the body that say "must erease theese genes, must crash into gas-station"


well i know the feeling myself of pushing the accelerator instead of the brake pedal for a short while .
Its a terrible feeling and You wants so badly to stop , so you step on the pedal even harder. when it happens ure pretty sure its the brake pedal ure stepping on, and its hard to do a sudden change ...... im not suprised people are sure they did use the brake pedal even if it was the accelerator. or if You do something really stupid its hard to admit that u did it , or for insurance,,, people blame the car. or try to get some money from the vendors of theese "new highly advanced unproven cars that most likly are dangerous"

And sometimes i can actually be something wrong with a car , even a strange fault. looking at the huge amount of priuses sold there are posibillites that someone unlucky gets a gremlin included in the electronics. But often the gremlin is the driver.......



cheers
Andreas

 

i guess my first reaction, if the car goes faster instead when i expect it to go slower, is to pick up my foot... not stomp it down.

 

Now watch this idiot sue the dealer, blaming the car for the crash, and win. Hopefully they can use the black box to get the real story... I did have a conversation with my wife and told her that if the car ever does that to just either put it in neutral by holding the lever there for a few seconds, OR press the power key for 5 seconds to shut the car down.

It's pretty irresponsible for someone to drive ANY new car without reading the owners manual, imho.

Dave

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Stev0 @ Mar 7 2007, 12:54 AM) [snapback]401400[/snapback]</div>

Maybe they should make it a mandatory 3-day waiting period before anybody can buy a Prius?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Mar 8 2007, 04:13 PM) [snapback]402345[/snapback]</div>

Yes, they should all be semi-automatic or maybe just bolt-action.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(sub3marathonman @ Mar 8 2007, 03:35 PM) [snapback]402362[/snapback]</div>

Although I think this driver proved robbing a mini-mart with a Prius doesn't pay.

(I also wonder if he thought the B for engine braking was the emergency brake).

 

Hard to believe he could navigate this path while uncontrollably accelerating...


[attachmentid=6816]

 

Now that you've shown us the car's path, it looks like perhaps he jammed the pedal too hard when pulling across the main road to make a left. Then he just freaked out and became a passenger in the car, watching as it took him to the scene of the impact.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Mar 6 2007, 10:55 PM) [snapback]401359[/snapback]</div>

Good. Don't!

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Mar 6 2007, 10:55 PM) [snapback]401359[/snapback]</div>

Old farts that don't understand technology go get two dealers to look at their new fangled gas-electric car.

Let me tell you something about DuPont Washington, where the driver is from... I worked in this suburban sprawl town for more than two and a half years and in that timeI have watched as Weyerhaeuser owned land was clear cut and retirement communities and cookie-cutter homes were installed.

You see, there are two types of people in DuDont; retired or military. The retirement community is _rather_ large. My bet is that the guy was old and got the gas and brake confused. It’s as simple as plowing into an open street market or DMV…

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(V8Cobrakid @ Mar 7 2007, 12:45 AM) [snapback]401432[/snapback]</div>

As every Prius owners knows.

 

dont need to shift to neutral. try shifting to reverse while going forward, it also will go to neutral as well. but lets face it, this happens all the time. last time it was an 74 year old lady who wiped out a barber shop...said the accelerator stuck on her.

obtw, the video on kiro 7 has the driver and he looks to be in the 50-70 range. hard to tell really.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hobbit @ Mar 7 2007, 06:27 PM) [snapback]402002[/snapback]</div>

Rug hook, rug hook, rug hook.

As it happens I had the opportunity today to secure the floor mat with the rug hook in a PT Cruiser. A tragedy narrowly averted.

 

I notice that it doesn't appear that any other news service has picked up the story. No doubt the editors realize it's just another gas-brake confusion accident, and the hybrid-fear business is just a bunch of baloney.

"The caught on fire...."

Most likely it was flammable debris from the mini-mart that was heated by the catalytic converter, as it would be with any car. Or, even more likely, it was hot things like food warmers that caught fire when knocked down.

"After the fire department put out the fire, they got back too, saying they were concerned about someone being electrocuted because of the car's high voltage system and all of the water they'd poured on the blaze."

This is understandable. Firefighters usually turn off electric power in burning buildings, and they knew there are high-voltage batteries in the Prius. Since they'd dumped water everywhere, they did the right thing: leave it for the experts.

On a related tangent, I wonder how many of these gas-brake accidents are caused by people who use both feet to drive? Those of us who lift our right foot from the accelerator and move it to the brake pedal seem less likely to make such a mistake.

As Galaxee said, you lift your foot first. Then you put it on the brake pedal. A two-foot driver, however, always brakes with the left foot; a moment of left-right confusion could easily cause the wrong foot to be used.

Has nobody mentioned that the brakes on virtually all cars are more powerful than the engine? You can always stop the car, as long as you actually use the brakes. Forget about trying to shift to neutral in any car. Slam the brakes. Then perhaps the parking brake.

No, this story is all excuses on the part of the driver. The accelerator jammed. The brakes didn't work. The parking brake didn't work. Hopefully his insurance company will simply pay for the accident and not try to blame anyone else.