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Sedans Lexus ES Lexus ES 350
2727 messages, Last post on Nov 15, 2009 at 5:29 PM
You are in the Lexus ES Forum. Your Hosts are pat & karens
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Replying to: shancy (Aug 29, 2009 2:47 pm)  aol.com and I'll send you a photo with it on my car. ">Good luck! Tim. |
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Runaway Lexus kills 4! 2009-09-01 03:38:41 (GMT) San Diego, CA—A fiery crash left four people dead after the car’s accelerator became stuck. The fatal crash happened on Friday, August 28, 2009 at 6:30 p.m. at the intersection of Route 125 and Mission Gorge Road in Santee, as reported by San Diego Union Tribune. According to the California Highway Patrol (CHP), a loaner 2009 Lexus ES 350 driven by CHP Officer Mark Saylor, and three family members experienced a serious malfunction, which caused the accelerator to stick. Someone reportedly dialed 911 around 6:30 p.m. to report the cars accelerator was stuck, and the car could not be stopped while traveling nearly 100 miles per hour. The out-of-control car careened through the intersection of Route 125 and Mission Gorge Road and collided with a Ford Explorer. The Lexus then jumped a curb, plowed through a fence, and then slammed into an embankment before going airborne. The luxury car reportedly overturned several times before it came to a stop and burst into flames in the San Diego River basin. The CHP officer Mark Saylor, 45; his wife, Cleofe, 45; Saylor’s daughter, Mahala, 13; and his brother-in-law, Chris Lastrella were all tragically killed at the scene of the horrific crash. The car was reportedly loaned from Bob Baker Lexus El Cajon on Friday after Saylor dropped his car off for service. The Lexus is fully equipped with a double redundant fail-safe system, which would shut the vehicle off if it were to experience a major malfunction. No one at Bob Baker Lexus El Cajon knows what went wrong and is currently waiting for the completion of a full investigation. The CHP multidisciplinary Accident Investigation Team and Sheriff’s investigators are conducting the investigation into the runaway vehicle accident. ES350 kills 4
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| This was a horrible accident and like many accidents several things in addition to a stuck accelerator must have occurred to end in such a tragedy. I suspect that since the car was a loaner the driver was unfamiliar with the controls. If this had been a normal car with a key ignition then he could have turned the key to turn off the engine; however, I own an ES350 for many years and I didn’t even know that to turn off the engine of my car while driving, I need to hold the On/Off switch for 3 seconds. Also it is common because of the irregular shift pattern on this vehicle, for new drivers to mistakenly drive in the manual shift mode. In this mode the car will still automatically shift when the RPM’s reach a high enough level; however the N for neutral is located adjacent to the up shift position when in manual shift, so if in an emergency you are unaware of this you would push the shift up to the N position but are actually up shifting the gears. As far a breaking, a coworker of mine had a Camry accelerator stick full throttle because of debris in the tube that the accelerator arm travels through and when his accelerator stuck he was unable to stop even uphill with full break force. | |
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Replying to: tome2c (Sep 10, 2009 9:17 am)
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Replying to: rcf8000 (Sep 10, 2009 11:48 am) |
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Replying to: rcf8000 (Sep 10, 2009 11:48 am)
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as far as i know...police drive cars that are automatics. they spend their lives in them. they receive training on high speed driving and are comfortable driving auto and trained to handle such situations. he should have easily kept his head and shifted to neutral or a low gear. he wasn't a normal person, he was a cop. its their work. esp chp! he he was on an officers salary and buying lexus's, perhaps he had financial difficulty.... |
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Replying to: gagrice (Sep 01, 2009 10:19 am) This case was complicated by a sort of perfect storm; this particular car has a fancy keyless ignition, the driver may have been unfamiliar with the shift pattern and some genius stuck in a cool super-weatherproof floor mat -- made for a different vehicle. The correct mat hooks onto the floor and can't foul the pedals, but this one was a bit too big an maybe not hooked to the floor. Normal foot motion could shove it forward and maybe over the gas pedal. Still, you gotta pay attention and don't just flail about when something unexpected happens. 1. Step on the brake (duh). The 4 wheel brakes easily overpower the 2 drive wheels (or 4 driven wheels with AWD). I have an AWD car with a turbo and the brakes could easily overpower full throttle. If you are already traveling at highway speeds, you'll need to use some force on the brake pedal and it'll feel strange, but the brakes still outpower the engine. A typical car can stop from 100 to 0 in five seconds; no car has that much accelerating power. then 2. Shift into Neutral, coast to the side of the road. OR 3. Turn off the engine. The brakes and steering will still work You don't like 1,2, or 3? It's hard to imagine why (artificial legs fell off? Aliens sending high voltage through the ignition key?), but there are more no-brainer options. a. Downshift until you reach 1st gear. That takes you down to about 30mph, and engine braking will slow the car. b. If it's an automatic you can hit reverse. That might stall the engine or possibly throw the drive wheels into a skid (they'll start turning again on their own) but that's better than screaming, texting your mechanic or staring into space. c. If it's a manual shift and you haven't figured this out.... it's hopeless. Pull out your phone and get the video. If the service brakes really failed you still have other options, but since the acel and brake systems have no mechanical connection, and there are 2 separate, independent hydraulic brake circuits the only way this would happen is the movie scenario where the evil genius/government agency/alien installs radio controlled gadgets that cuts both your brake lines at once. Even then you have other ways to stop the car. The problem is that many people are not driving their cars, they're passengers holding the wheel. Once something goes wrong they simply stare out the windshield and allow any reflexes they may have to take over.
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Replying to: pegasuszz (Sep 30, 2009 7:22 am) |
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