The Toyota Tort Circus now includes 61-year-old James Sikes, whose alleged runaway Prius last week ran stole the headlines from Toyota engineers\u2019 exposure \u2014 just one day earlier \u2014 of ABC\u2019s fraudulent report alleging runaway Toyota Avalons. Toyota\u2019s engineers were back at the mike again Monday gamely trying to rationalize irrational tort claims (Sikes lawyer says his client is a victim of \u201cghosts in the machine\u201d).<\/p>\n
But behind the clowns, the Sikes circus revealed two truths.<\/p>\n
1.) Congress\u2019 brake override \u201cfix\u201d is irrelevant. After two weeks of Congressional hearings, Washington pols had seized on a silver bullet to solve \u201cinstant acceleration\u201d: A mandate that all cars come with a \u201cbrake-override\u201d system that shuts off the accelerator when the brake is applied. But, though most Toyotas do not have brake-override, the Prius Sikes was driving does. As Automotive News reports: \u201cToyota said a brake override in the Prius would have cut engine power to the vehicle had the driver applied \u2018moderate\u2019 pressure on the brake pedal.\u201d So much for silver bullets. Driver error anyone?<\/p>\n
2.) The tort-enabling media has already made up its mind. Despite a history (accelerating Audis, exploding GM trucks, accelerating Jeeps) of false-alarm \u201cghost in the machine\u201d scares, the tort-friendly media always comes to the same conclusion: The corporation did it. Cue Harry Smith on CBS Early Show, whose guest was Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) trying to explain the inconsistencies \u2014 and possible human error \u2014 behind Mr. Sikes\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n
\u201cDoes this giant corporation need your help to defend it?\u201d Smith growled at Issa. Driver error? Stick to the script, dammit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Toyota Tort Circus now includes 61-year-old James Sikes, whose alleged runaway Prius last week ran stole the headlines from Toyota engineers\u2019 exposure \u2014 just one day earlier \u2014 of ABC\u2019s fraudulent report alleging runaway Toyota Avalons. Toyota\u2019s engineers were back at the mike again Monday gamely trying to rationalize irrational tort claims (Sikes lawyer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4363"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4363"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4364,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4363\/revisions\/4364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}