Toyota Prius Highway Incident
Toyota is getting lot of free press these days, not that they want it, but they can’t help it.
It was another faulty Prius reaching speeds around 94 miles per hour on a California Highway, negating the action of its driver that made news this time.
A panicked 61 year old James Sikes could do nothing to stop his blue Prius on Monday at 1:30PM on Interstate 8 near La Posta, and resorted to a desperate measure by calling 911.
Sikes said that he had pushed the gas pedal of his Prius to pass another car when this happened. He felt that the gas pedal got stuck and pressing on the brake did not do anything to reduce the speed of the car. In fact he smelled the brakes burning as he had kept the pedal fully depressed all along.
A police officer pulled his car alongside the wayward Prius and helped Sikes slow down his car to about 50 mph. Sikes then switched the engine off and coasted to a halt.
For a change, Toyota’s action was prompt this time; they announced that they are sending a field technical specialist to San Diego to investigate the incident.
Thanks Toyota, better late than never. This is the right approach. You need to take every faulty car in for a high level inspection, and learn from it. If you guys need a Prius to investigate inadvertent steering loss problem, I have one to offer.
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