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The Toyota Witch Hunt

businessweek.com

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Re: The Toyota Witch Hunt

#41

Post by Sthorpe »

pohl wrote: post #37
Sthorpe wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hacker News is great. I had been thinking this exact same thing but then realized I was being ridiculous. However, isn't it a little scary to realize how no one is in control of us? I noticed this when I was riding on Bart. Everyone acts a particular way based on what other people expect them to act like. We all operate with so much order and yet no one is telling us to. Just thought this was cool.

I'm pretty sure the news media doesn't decide which drum to beat every night based upon which drum people expect them to beat.

Really? You really believe that? All I ever see on the news is death, tragedy and drama. If they showed us something we didn't expect we wouldn't watch.

Re: The Toyota Witch Hunt

#42

Post by mediaman »

sliverstorm wrote: post #3

Thank god! I have heard only from people who buy into the witch hunt (and an excellent name for it, that is). I am really very glad to see I'm not the only person who realizes most of it is ridiculous and overblown. Hell, even if the gas pedal corroded AND the floor mat held it down, has not one of these drivers even though to reach down and PULL the goddamn thing up? I pray people realize this is folly... I don't kn…

I don't disagree that this has been overblown, but in fairness it would be fairly difficult to reach down and pull the gas pedal up while the engine is raging and the vehicle is undergoing significant forward acceleration, while the driver is presumably trying to avoid colliding into other vehicles and objects.

Of course, they should just shift it to neutral and let it redline.

Re: The Toyota Witch Hunt

#43

Post by philwelch »

stcredzero wrote: post #26
sliverstorm wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The accelerator pedal would have to be immovable, frozen in place. The ignition switch would have to lock or otherwise malfunction The shift lever or clutch or automatic shift lever would have to malfunction The brakes would have to overheat (does not really happen much in a production car). It is not 100% true that brakes will always overpower the engine, but the cases in which they don't are the ones with massive 7…

If you were creative and knew something about cars, you could pull one of many fuses from the fuse box. On cars I've serviced, the computer fuse is always in the driver kick panel, so just rip off that panel and start yanking fuses while watching the road. Unfortunately, this is probably considerably more dangerous than driving while on your cellphone.

Being distracted while driving is less safe than simply driving--given that your car is in good working order. If you have a stuck accelerator, you're going to crash if you can't fix it. I'll take the distraction and possible loss of reaction time over the sudden and guaranteed death of flipping a curve at 120+, personally.

Re: The Toyota Witch Hunt

#44

Post by vaksel »

waivej wrote: post #24

I bet there is a mechanical/electrical issue that is blown way out of proportion, and human error in some of these issues. Once I accidentally slammed on the gas thinking it was the brake. (I got confused switching from a manual transmission to an automatic.) It was scary...the car jumped a curb and my driver's ed teacher was furious. He slammed his brake and it stopped the car.

that's how I failed my first driver's test.

Was reversing into a spot, and hit gas instead of brakes.

Re: The Toyota Witch Hunt

#45

Post by zzzmarcus »

whyenot wrote: post #40
zzzmarcus wrote: post #25

Can someone explain to me why Congress gets involved in investigating things like Toyota's manufacturing defects or the way college football teams are ranked? Does Congress have a legal mandate to investigate anything it deems to be interesting/fishy/a potential target for legislation? Has Congress always conducted these types of investigations or is it a modern phenomenon?

cynic: Congress' mandate is to investigate anything that will get votes, or campaign funds. Wikipedia: Investigative hearings share some of the characteristics of legislative and oversight hearings. The difference lies in Congress’s stated determination to investigate, usually when there is a suspicion of wrongdoing on the part of public officials acting in their official capacity, or private citizens whose activitie…

Thanks for the answer. The difference is that the scandals in the Wikipedia article all directly involve government:

Credit Mobilier: "The distribution of Crédit Mobilier stocks by Congressman Oakes Ames along with cash bribes to congressmen"

Teapot Dome: "control of U.S. Navy petroleum reserves at Teapot Dome in Wyoming and at Elk Hills and Buena Vista in California, were transferred from the U.S. Navy Department to the Department of the Interior"

And Army-McCarthy, Watergate and Iran-Contra are all obviously directly tied to the government.

In those cases it makes sense for Congress to get involved. It's when Congress start to investigate "private citizens whose activities suggest the needs for legislative remedy" that I get concerned. That type of broad power apparently gives them free-reign to investigate anything they don't like.

It seems to me that in the past (15 or 20+ years ago) Congress didn't get involved in non-government related "scandals" like Toyota and college football, I'd be interested if anyone has examples to the contrary.

Re: The Toyota Witch Hunt

#46

Post by jbooth »

pohl wrote: post #37
Sthorpe wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hacker News is great. I had been thinking this exact same thing but then realized I was being ridiculous. However, isn't it a little scary to realize how no one is in control of us? I noticed this when I was riding on Bart. Everyone acts a particular way based on what other people expect them to act like. We all operate with so much order and yet no one is telling us to. Just thought this was cool.

I'm pretty sure the news media doesn't decide which drum to beat every night based upon which drum people expect them to beat.

Of course not, they're not psychic.

But they do decide on the basis of which drum they think people expect them beat.

Re: The Toyota Witch Hunt

#47

Post by stcredzero »

If Congress really wanted to get at the truth, they should have called disinterested third-party engineers to study and get their opinion on this case. Nobody believes Toyota, even if the final facts prove it's correct. Everyone believes the witnesses, even when the engineering evidence often disproves their testimony. It is impossible to come to a scientifically valid conclusion under those two circumstances, which is why many individuals involved in this issue have described the proceedings as "witch hunts."

Actual American political debate hardly happens anymore. What we have now is theater. The mentality of the LCD American voter is simply abysmal. You can see it from the low or sloppy intellectual content of the "product" which is presented to them by politicians, journalists, and other media workers.

Re: The Toyota Witch Hunt

#48

Post by mturmon »

old-gregg wrote: post #20

"Every man, woman, and child in the U.S. has approximately a one-in-8000 chance of perishing in a car accident every year. Over a decade, that's about one in 800. Given the millions of cars included in the Toyota recalls and the fewer than 20 alleged deaths over the past decade, the alleged fatality rate is about one death per 200,000 recalled Toyotas. Even if all the alleged deaths really are resultant from vehicle…

The C&D article (and the ones it points to about their road test) is really good. Because there are more people talking about this than actually know anything. Including in this thread.

The C&D article does leave the door open to the possibility of the brakes not stopping the car. If you pump the brakes, rather than firmly putting them down once, you may lose vacuum, or overheat the brakes in a series of "slow down a little" steps. The vacuum is apparently hard to replenish when the throttle is open.

The advice about turning the car off works sometimes, but not always. Suppose you're in a rental Lexus like the one the CA state trooper died in. Would you know that to kill the engine, you have to depress the off button for 3 seconds continuously? Three seconds is a long time with the throttle wide open.

It seems the key technical mistake on Toyota's part, as pointed out in the C&D article, is to omit an interlock that kills the throttle when the brake is depressed. This is apparently standard on many other cars.

Toyota's damage control on this has been disastrous.

Re: The Toyota Witch Hunt

#49

Post by jcromartie »

pohl wrote: post #37
Sthorpe wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hacker News is great. I had been thinking this exact same thing but then realized I was being ridiculous. However, isn't it a little scary to realize how no one is in control of us? I noticed this when I was riding on Bart. Everyone acts a particular way based on what other people expect them to act like. We all operate with so much order and yet no one is telling us to. Just thought this was cool.

I'm pretty sure the news media doesn't decide which drum to beat every night based upon which drum people expect them to beat.

The first concern of most news networks today is ratings/viewer numbers. They pick stories that will attract the average person, and thus you have Missing White Woman Syndrome. It's also well documented that certain networks (i.e. FOX News) have stuck to a schedule of talking points handed to them by various political entities.

Re: The Toyota Witch Hunt

#50

Post by barmstrong »

I had the exact same reaction when I saw this.."congress? why is congress getting involved in this?"

If people are upset with how their Toyota cars are operating, then no one stands to lose more than the Toyota company itself in lost revenue. So what additional incentive or pressure could congress apply here except increased publicity? Let's see...we lose a billion dollars, or get chewed out by some old guys for a few hours, which sounds worse?

It seems really silly to watch politicians chastise a CEO and talk down to him. Good engineering (especially on a massive scale like that) is really hard. If they think they can do better then no one is stopping them (members of congress) from starting their own car company to try and compete. Otherwise, I'm not sure why they feel qualified to criticize.

Something else that bugged me is the quote from one of the witnesses which said 'Shame on you Toyota for being so greedy'. So...you're saying they intentionally pissed off all their customers as some sort of plan to make more money? I'm so confused by this mentality people have that greed in corporations is a bad thing. Yes, you could argue they sacrificed long term quality for a short term savings, but this is hardly greedy, it's just bad business practice that leaves you with LESS money.

This may be unrealistic, but I really wanted to see the Toyota CEO reply to congress with some sort of statement like, "We won't be appearing at any hearings. We are a private company and don't answer to government. We only answer to our customers. So if any of our customers have questions here is a toll free hotline. Members of congress, if you are a Toyota customer, feel free to call as well, but you're role in government won't be taken into account in how we respond."

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