toyota accelearation and vehicular manslaughter

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kiryan
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toyota accelearation and vehicular manslaughter

Postby kiryan » Wed Mar 03, 2010 5:04 pm

So we've probably all heard that some toyota's seem to have a "sudden acceleration" issue that happens randomly and the driver has no control over.

This guy apparently with his family, including his pregnant wife, blew through an intersection at 70-90 mph and struck a car killing a few people. In retrospect, they are going back and re-examining the case, the car ect. Reps of the people who were killed who demanded the maximum sentence at the time are now advocating for review / release.

What irritates me is the application of the law in this case. 8 years in prison for what I think was very obviously an accident at the time and now may be seen to be the result of mechanical failure. what the sam hell were they doing putting this guy in jail? Even if he accidently had his foot on the gas instead of the brake... we're going to put him in jail for a decade? accidents happen, people are going to die, is it really justice to put someone in jail for a simple, even common mistake albeit it doesn't usually result in multiple deaths.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/03/02/toy ... l?hpt=Sbin
Corth
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Re: toyota accelearation and vehicular manslaughter

Postby Corth » Wed Mar 03, 2010 5:56 pm

I read about this a week ago or so and was thinking about posting something. I absolutely agree with you. I found the idea of criminally prosecuting the guy for an accident distasteful at best. Driving a vehicle is an inherrently dangerous activity. If you are on the road then you are implicitly accepting the fact that someone else might make a big mistake and end up killing you - by accident. Now it turns out it may have been the car and not his fault. But even if it was his fault I don't know why he is in jail.

As an aside, I have a client who jumped out of her Toyota a couple of years ago because she couldn't get it to stop. She sustained some minor physical injuries but to this day is unable to drive a vehicle because she is scared that it might happen again. The police report indicates the officer inspected her brakes and they were fine. Now, of course, we know that it wasn't the brakes that were the issue but rather the throttle. But it is the same kind of reaction as in the case you posted. When someone says they cannot stop their car the first reaction is to check to see if the brakes work.
Ardessa Moonblade
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Re: toyota accelearation and vehicular manslaughter

Postby Ardessa Moonblade » Wed Mar 03, 2010 8:08 pm

Acceleration.

Just for reference, and those people who have vermillion chainmail sleeves and need to know how to spell it right for the proc!
kedle
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Re: toyota accelearation and vehicular manslaughter

Postby kedle » Wed Mar 03, 2010 11:47 pm

I will not comment on the persons sentence as I did not look at the case to know enough to decide for myself if it was just or unjust. However in both cases simply turning the car off not to the 'lock' position but to the off position would have saved much injury and trouble. I don't know about your state but in my state they teach that in drivers ed.
kiryan
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Re: toyota accelearation and vehicular manslaughter

Postby kiryan » Fri Mar 05, 2010 5:08 pm

Never heard of it. I've taken driver knowledge tests in CA, OR and MT. Its possible I read it and just didn't note it.

Of course we can't make a real judgement on this case, but assuming there are no substantial negligent factors that they failed to mention, why would you send a perfectly decent human being to jail for 8 years because of an accident. You have to believe he did this intentionally or was grossly negligent to believe that he deserves any jail time.

On the other hand, if its innocent until proven guilty and you had testimony that said there was nothing wrong with the brakes and that it would've taken 15, 20 or even 30 seconds to reach the speed he was going at... in the absence of no other logical explanation maybe you would have to agree he's guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of some sort of intentional harm.
Botef
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Re: toyota accelearation and vehicular manslaughter

Postby Botef » Fri Mar 05, 2010 5:40 pm

Toyota is recommending you avoid turning the vehicle off since it disables power steering and makes it much more difficult to control. Instead they recommend putting the vehicle in neutral and only powering off as a last resort.
Thilindel
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Re: toyota accelearation and vehicular manslaughter

Postby Thilindel » Sun Mar 07, 2010 6:07 am

kedle wrote:I will not comment on the persons sentence as I did not look at the case to know enough to decide for myself if it was just or unjust. However in both cases simply turning the car off not to the 'lock' position but to the off position would have saved much injury and trouble. I don't know about your state but in my state they teach that in drivers ed.


First, you lose most of your steering when you kill the engine. Second, for push start ignition, you do realize, I _hope_ that it takes 3.3 seconds for Toyota's to kill the engine? You have to look away from the road to find the Start/Stop, while steering a vehicle under full throttle. You also understand that a new Camry does 0-60 in 6.2 seconds, right? That's a LOT of power. I don't ever recall that scenario coming up in driver's ed. Given the off-duty cop that died with his family, while driving a borrowed Lexus...clearly it's not that simple.

Around town driving, then acute throttle - That's quite a bit of velocity and torque steer to deal with, especially when it's unintentional. More likely an eternity in close quarter situations...

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