state trooper who gave me a failure to control... after i wrecked my car .. was telling me about his brand new IS-F, while writing the ticket.

 

Did anyone else read above where it says a passenger called 911 not the driver?

 

Since I work for a Lexus dealership, I'll chime in. Also, everything I've read has come from googling it. Apparently, he was in a loaner car as he had his in for service. Preliminary investigation shows that the dealership had the wrong mat in the loaner car. The mat was made for a different model and not the ES. Also, it states on all the all-weather mats we sell that you can't put them on top of carpet mats. You have to remove the carpet mats first or it's too thick. The last few years Lexus has put in carpet hooks and the all-weather mats has holes in them for the carpet hooks. So, if installed properly there shouldn't be a problem. There is no key to turn to turn it off. It has a smart key system. I don't know if you can hit the button and turn the car off while moving. He could have put it in neutral though. Yes it is tragic, but it looks like he panicked. He's a cop, so you would think he would be a little better trained than most people in that situation. Not saying they train for that particular situation, but I think you know what I mean. I have a feeling Toyota is doing this to be on the safe side. To prevent future crashes and lawsuits. I still feel like this is human error and not the fault of the car.

 

I'd find it really discomforting not having the ability to shut the car off whenever I wanted...

 

No kidding, that was the only thing going through my mind when I read this story. I'm pretty sure the neutral/kill engine trick was part of the study package for the driver's test here...

My old civic would do this occasionally. Not a big deal...

 

If nothing else could't you just stand on the brakes? I mean Iv'e never tried to hold both down before but I doubt the car would be accelerating at all

 

If you stand on the brakes, it should stop the car. I think if you hold down the start button for 3 seconds it will turn the car off.

 

This happened to me when I was 16. Well something similar and probably more dangerous.

I had just taken the intercooler off of my Eclipse to clean it or something. What I had not known was that there is a rubber bushing on the inside of the upper intercooler pipe. When I reattached the pipe to the intercooler, i pushed the bushing up into the pipe. I took the car out to check for boost leaks and once i got on the boost, it shot the bushing up and wedged it in the throttle body, wide open.

Without hesitating, I immediately thought to throw it in neutral and kill the engine, even as a lowly, snot-nosed 16 year old

 

Poor copper.

 

she should have just crashed the car to begin with