Kill The Messenger

I am willing to bet Mr. James Sikes wishes he'd driven his blue Prius off a cliff, instead of panic-braking his way into the crosshairs of Toyota's lawyers and attack-dog government supporters.

My family owns a slightly older blue Prius and I've given strict instructions to the troops: If that car accelerates unintentionally, don't call 911. Whatever calamity results from the runaway might be less painful than the public flaying Toyota and it's minions will put you through.

The story the company presents is this: Mr. Sikes, in an apparent pique of disappointment with the customer service he was receiving, decided to fake the incident by applying his brakes and accelerator off and on 250 times during that last drive. It had to be a fraud, they say, because in the Prius if you fully depress the accelerator and also press the brakes more than half way to the floor, the engine overrides and the car slows.

That's how the company explains what their investigators and the NHTSA discovered: the front brakes were completely spent, with no pad material remaining, and the caliper seals so overheated they were melted. The rear brakes were in normal shape.

If Toyota's charges (and that's really what they are) against Mr. Sikes were presented in court, and if I were a juror, I'd be skeptical that Mr. Sikes was skillful enough to fake a runaway while convincingly melting his front brakes (but not ruining the rear brakes).

I would also wonder if the override system in the Prius worked if the accelerator was pressed only 3/4 of the way and not absolutely floored. An electronic malfunction resulting in unintended acceleration might not actually move the physical pedal that much. In such case would the override work?

I'd also have to ask myself, what would be the motive for faking this? Mr. Sikes wasn't suing Toyota. He doesn't seem to be a publicity seeker. And, sure, customer relations with dealerships can be rocky, but what would be gained by potentially trashing your car - or losing your life, in the attempt to convincingly stage a runaway?

Finally, on the claim that investigators were unable to reproduce unintended acceleration in Mr. Sikes car, I'd say 'so what?' Millions of motorists at some time in their ownership lives have run across an intermittent glitch that magically goes away at the dealer, but reappears, sometimes within minutes of driving away with the problem undiagnosed. Once, all the analog (but computer controlled) gauges in my 1999 Volkswagen TDI suddenly displayed abnormally high readings - noticed when I was reported as going 20 mph while motionless at a stoplight. I turned off the engine and restarted and all was normal and the incident never repeated. Good luck finding that problem.

Now it may be Toyota is correct and that Mr. Sikes was a disgruntled customer with an axe to grind, but if the company's claim and evidence were introduced in a criminal court today, the case would not pass the test of reasonable doubt. Yet Toyota, it's Congressional friend Senator Darrell Issa (R-California), and much of the media have already tried and convicted James Sikes.

Apologies over. Kill The Messenger seems the new strategy.