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From: Maynard G. Krebs on 11 Mar 2010 17:52

Here's some more interesting info on this incident. It appears that the
driver, James Sikes, had recently filed for bankruptcy and has over $700,000
in debt. He's also 5 months worth of payments behind on the Prius in
question. So there might have been a financial motivation to fake this
incident. Of course denies he's in it for the money! I'm sure it's just
coincidence that he keeps appearing all over CNN and that his Prius was
likely to be repo'd soon.


http://jalopnik.com/5491101/

From: Peter Granzeau on 11 Mar 2010 18:13
On Tue, 9 Mar 2010 13:37:09 -0500, "Obveeus" <Obveeus(a)aol.com> wrote:

>
>"Elmo P. Shagnasty" <elmop(a)nastydesigns.com> wrote in message
>news:elmop-5EF2F2.13223709032010(a)nothing.attdns.com...
>> In article
>> <19378fd1-313e-4ed9-9ee4-57697ad4cd0d(a)19g2000yqu.googlegroups.com>,
>> Obveeus <obveeus(a)aol.com> wrote:
>>
>>> ...is the transmission/shift 'fly by wire' as well
>>
>> Yes, it is.
>
>In that case, there is no way to predict the level of problems that could
>occur in a software/electrical failure. Electronics get affected by
>electrical fields, magnetic fluxes, sun spots, etc... Not to mention the
>near impossibility of tracking down defects internal to a chip or circuit
>(shift registers, up/down counters, timers, etc... that work 99.99999% of
>the time correctly, but have no recovery mode if they do get out of step).
>There are things that can take months to capture even with logic analyzers
>and a myriad of attempts to test the conditions of the problem. Sometime
>even attaching electrical test equipment can change the circuit enough that
>it operates correctly.

Brake lines fail. Accelerators stick. Mechanical Things Happen. The
worst component in a car is the nut behind the wheel. Making it
electronic does add another level of complication to an already
complicated machine. How many Prius have had some kind of runaway
incident? I've had a car accidentally hit a curb when I couldn't find
the brake with my foot (an admittedly dumb incident on my part), but I
could have claimed unintended acceleration, too. (By the way, that
required replacement of much of the front suspension.) I agree, it's
hard to see why it happened, but inasmuch as the gear shift and power
switch just signal for intended actions, a completely screwed up and
evidently frozen computer might have refused to do their intended
actions. However, it appears that in the widely reported incident,
shifting to neutral did indeed work, once they got the guy to try it. He
panicked, and did a LOT of things wrong.
From: Obveeus on 11 Mar 2010 19:19

"Maynard G. Krebs" <Maynard(a)nospam.com> wrote in message
news:hnbs6s$sd0$1(a)news.eternal-september.org...
>
> Here's some more interesting info on this incident. It appears that the
> driver, James Sikes, had recently filed for bankruptcy and has over
> $700,000 in debt. He's also 5 months worth of payments behind on the
> Prius in question. So there might have been a financial motivation to
> fake this incident. Of course denies he's in it for the money! I'm sure
> it's just coincidence that he keeps appearing all over CNN and that his
> Prius was likely to be repo'd soon.

Why am I not surprised at all by this development. In fact, I was pretty
sure he would turn out to be someone with severe financial problems.


From: ransley on 12 Mar 2010 19:01
On Mar 11, 4:52 pm, "Maynard G. Krebs" <Mayn...(a)nospam.com> wrote:
> Here's some more interesting info on this incident.  It appears that the
> driver, James Sikes, had recently filed for bankruptcy and has over $700,000
> in debt.  He's also 5 months worth of payments behind on the Prius in
> question.  So there might have been a financial motivation to fake this
> incident.  Of course denies he's in it for the money!  I'm sure it's just
> coincidence that he keeps appearing all over CNN and that his Prius was
> likely to be repo'd soon.
>
> http://jalopnik.com/5491101/

Now that makes sense, he is broke and he did say he wont drive that
car again, and the lady in NY that hit a wall probably was doing her
makup. Runaway is the #1 excuse for all acidents now with this car. So
which ones are real? Some are. If it was me id put it in neutral and
simply brake, and use the emergency brake if needed.
From: Davoud on 12 Mar 2010 19:23
Mark_Ransley
> Now that makes sense, [sic] he is broke and he did say he wont [sic] drive that
> car again, and the lady in NY that [sic] hit a wall probably was doing her
> makup [sic]. Runaway is the #1 excuse for all acidents now with this car [sic]. So
> which ones are real? Some are. If it was me id [sic] put it in neutral and
> simply brake, and use the emergency brake if needed.

You might put it in neutral if the software allowed you to do that. I'm
not saying that it wouldn't, only that the cause of these incidents is
not yet known.

Davoud

--
I agree with almost everything that you have said and almost everything that
you will say in your entire life.

usenet *at* davidillig dawt cawm
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