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n1 writes:
"U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced a criminal wire fraud charge against Toyota for defrauding consumers by issuing misleading statements about safety issues in Toyota and Lexus vehicles.
On the same day, The Department of Justice also announced a deferred prosecution agreement with Toyota under which the automotive company accepts a $1.2bn penalty and admits that it misled U.S. consumers by concealing and making deceptive statements about two safety issues affecting its vehicles, each regarding unintended acceleration. If Toyota conforms to all the terms of the agreement, the government will defer prosecution on the information for three years and then seek to dismiss the charge."
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Toyota Admits to Misleading Consumers on Safety
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In Tulsa, Oklahoma, it is against the law to open a soda bottle without
the supervision of a licensed engineer.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Open4D on Sunday March 23 2014, @04:00PM
Maybe in the heat of the moment, not completely trivial?
I wonder whether this might answer the question of why it's more of a problem in the USA than other parts of the world. I've only ever driven manual transmission [wikipedia.org] vehicles. Pressing the clutch pedal would seem like a very natural action to take no matter what the speed, whereas actually changing to neutral at high speed takes at least a bit of thought.
Anyway, bring on the self-driving cars, I say.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday March 23 2014, @07:00PM
"Maybe in the heat of the moment, not completely trivial?"
They shouldn't be on the road for safety reasons. No excuses. Intentionally going out there with no idea what you're doing is exactly as irresponsible as driving drunk. Exactly the same scenario.
Decades ago I had an ancient carb car and those had issues when cold or not perfectly maintained as teen driver clunkers often are, and one time I stalled it on the road while making a turn, popped it into neutral to restart the engine (starter won't crank unless neutral or park) and once it started flipped it back into drive while still moving. It was certainly the most exciting part of the entire trip, but no big deal. Probably lost about 5 MPH and the whole process only took 50 feet maybe, didn't even coast to a stop. Never practiced it, only happened once, I'm no amazing driver, it was simple and instinctual for a teen driver. This seems to be worst case situation other than an elderly driver or drunk driver?
Somehow, if you look at the demographics, the majority of unintended accelerations know to happen when the driver is over 65. That's some amazing software. Also the software knows whats being reported on TV so "suicide by runaway car" happens a lot more when its heavily covered on TV but when the news cycle moves on, the "problem" software magically disappears. I had no idea my car's engine computer watched fox news behind my back.
Also I read a lot of quotes about the average terrified american is unable to produce 150 pounds of braking force (again, my occasionally non-power brake clunker never required 150 pounds...) and most people's commuter class cars can accelerate 10x faster than they brake, so a mere 15 pounds of foot pressure should stop the car as fast as flooring the engine would speed it up. Yet in America, all Americans are fat so they can't push their foot down with 350 pounds of force in a car, only while standing on one foot, all while normal cars certainly don't take even 150 pounds of force or some similar illogic that I simply can't wrap my head around.
(Score: 1) by adolf on Monday March 24 2014, @12:52AM
It might be different now, but dealing with sudden, unwanted acceleration was something that was not covered when I went to a private, state-licensed driver's education school to get my license around a couple of decades ago.
Lots of other emergency situations were discussed. Sudden acceleration? Nope. Not at all.
Before we can logically expect someone to be able to do a thing, we must first afford them the opportunity to learn that thing.
Nice move; excellence in motion. But it was a straight-forward solution to a problem which is exactly the opposite of what is being discussed. Worst case for you was some cussing with restarting a stalled car at the side of the road; worst case in unintended acceleration is a bit different -- obviously.
I'm wasting my days as I've wasted my nights and I've wasted my youth