yeeeeah. Precisely what I thought when I hear about that problem.

and wait, with a rotten pineapple? Like the devil's gonna use it for.. leverage?

hahahaha, I love indignity.

Sounds like there could be a *f#&% channel for this video alone.

I would vote for this man if he ran for President.

[redacted]

This video is amusing, for sure... I laughed.

But the design of the Prius shifter is absolutely horrible. And with the fact that you have to hold the power button down for 3 seconds to turn it off... Also a horrible design. So his point, though amusing, is kinda moot.

Some people don't think too well when they are in a panic. I wouldn't hold it against some old lady for not interacting with her Prius correctly, given the nature of the designs she'd be working with.

..it was more like being chewed out by an ethnic crash test dummy to be honest....

I blame design for mistakes more than most people. But I don't care how difficult it is to figure out the first time, if you don't know how to put your car in neutral, you should not be driving.

Also, you can't have the car shut off when you just push the power button, otherwise people would accidentally turn it off constantly. Maybe there should be the general power button, and another panic button next to it, and you have to hit both to turn it off immediately. But you can't have an unprotected one touch kill switch.>> ^braindonut:
This video is amusing, for sure... I laughed.
But the design of the Prius shifter is absolutely horrible. And with the fact that you have to hold the power button down for 3 seconds to turn it off... Also a horrible design. So his point, though amusing, is kinda moot.
Some people don't think too well when they are in a panic. I wouldn't hold it against some old lady for not interacting with her Prius correctly, given the nature of the designs she'd be working with.

>> ^braindonut:
This video is amusing, for sure... I laughed.
But the design of the Prius shifter is absolutely horrible. And with the fact that you have to hold the power button down for 3 seconds to turn it off... Also a horrible design. So his point, though amusing, is kinda moot.

This is a good design. I don't want my Prius to shift into neutral if someone taps the shifter while the car is moving. I don't want my transmission to fly apart if someone pushes the Park button, or tries to put the shifter in reverse while I'm on the highway. I don't want my car to go dead if the power button is tapped while the car is in motion.

I also don't want to have my Prius use a lame-ass mechanical key that you twist, or have a big metal bar that locks in place for the shifter.

They shouldn't base the entire control design around the procedures you might need if your accelerator gets stuck.

Personally, I think if the media wants to make themselves useful, they should be telling people this procedure for stopping their Prius. They also should start being a bit honest about how rare it really is, and stop acting like the problem must be electronic throttle control systems themselves.

I'm sure they could design a system where pressing the brake automatically disengages any acceleration, but that probably costs too much money or something.

If your car randomly accelerates in heavy traffic and you run into the back of someone's car, I can understand that. It's a sudden event.

... but when someone has enough time to pull out their phone and call 911, I really have a hard time justifying them having a license to begin with. How long should that call even be?


911: What's your emergency?
Driver: MY PRIUS WON'T STOP!!!
911: Did you try putting your vehicle in neutral?
Driver: Um.... <click>

Actually CBC did a piece on how to stop your car if you can't slow it down. It was this year, Feb I think, and before the guy in LA had to call 911 to stop his car.

The guy in the video makes a good point though, learn how to turn your car off =\

I haven't paid much attention to any of this runaway Toyota stuff, but the first thing I though was why don't people put their car in neutral or shut it off. I've never driven a Prius, but after seeing this video I can now see how one can get away from you.

Everything is electronic, the shifter has no physical connection to the transmission, it just sends a signal to the computer to tell the transmission to go into neutral. The power button doesn't physically disconnect the power to shut down the car, it just tells the computer to shut off. What happens when the electronics fuck up? You can try to shift into neutral, but if your toy gear shifter doesn't sent the signal to the computer, it's never going to shift into neutral.