Hasn't this already been hashed through ? Shouldn't a CHP officer know that ? Tragic but completely avoidable.

That's pretty horrible and I can understand how people would panic and lose their minds in such a situation. At what speed do governors kick in? Do they turn off the engine or just prevent going over a specific speed?

@TurboWagon00: TurboWagon eh? :) Mine too.

@TurboWagon00: Yes, it was completely avoidable. If Toyota had recalled its cars when it first learned of the problem this tragedy could have been avoided.

@TurboWagon00: Agreed, you would think a Hwy Patrol officer would know how to handle a vehicle better then that. I had something similar happen to me as a teenager and I was on the side of the road and had the car off within seconds of realizing my accelerator was stuck.

Maybe I'm missing something, but couldn't they just have turned the engine off?

@TurboWagon00: @TurboWagon00:

I don't know about you, but having been in a slightly similar situation, I wouldn't have been able to think clearly enough to even call 911. I knew that the truck pulling out into the intersection in front of me would hurt or kill me (thankfully, I'm obviously alive), and I didn't have time to do anything. I was paralyzed in fear, and holding on for dear life. I can imagine that a state trooper, though trained, would do the same thing. Especially if his family were with him. At least he called 911, which allowed rescue to come quicker for those in the other vehicle.

I really don't think blame should be thrown around in this case. It seems pretty clear to me.

Yes, he could have downshifted into neutral. How do we know he didn't try? I don't think we can put him at fault for this tragic accident, and I don't think we should try. I believe that this was Toyota's fault, simply because they knew there were flaws and did nothing.

Listening to this made me feel pretty uneasy.

This is a bit... snuffy for this site.

I think this is made worse by the fact that most people haven't the vaguest clue how their car actually works. Skipping the possibility that you might pull whatever is hanging the gas pedal away with your foot, if you had to learn to drive a manual transmission you'd have an innate understanding of the concept that you can disconnect the engine from the wheels. There have been many "runaway" tragedies like this that could have been averted by smacking the shifter out of drive.

I think many automatic-transmission drivers forget the shifter is even there until it's time to put it in park, and sometimes even then.

When I was in college, a woman came into the store where I worked upset that her car wouldn't work. She couldn't get the key out and it wouldn't start again and she needed to call someone (this was pre-cell-phone days.) I guessed from her description what was wrong... the selector was in "D" so she couldn't turn the key to lock and take out the key, and the starter would only engage in Park or Neutral.

It is sad but the driver had the ability to put the car in neutral or turn off the engine off at any point. Obviously hind sight is 20/20, but the dispatchers first order of business should of been getting the car under control, and find out where they were located afterward. With a car speeding out of control they were going to hit something eventually. I realize people can panic and lock up in situations like that, but the dispatcher should of been yelling at them to turn off the car, or better yet put it in neutral (that way they would keep the power brakes)

@nycguy: Or shifted to neutral?

My guess is he was in complete panic mode. Very tragic. Hindsight is 20/20 and in a clear state of mind it makes sense to shut off the engine or shift to neutral, I'm sure when you're panicking you react differently

You had the same thought i did. If he had the presence of mind to call 911, i would have guessed that he could have maybe tried an alternative solution, such as the neutral idea you mention. You don't want to turn the car off, because the engine runs the power steering and the power brakes. The engine would have taken care of itself with an RPM limiter while he pulled off to the side and looked at what the problem was.

@nycguy: This model uses a button to start the car, and in order to turn it off you have to hold the button in for three seconds. Unfortunately, that information wasn't included in the owner's manual for this model.

@nycguy: No, Toyota and Lexus' use push button starts, which does not allow you to turn off the engine after a certain speeds (10 or 15) to avoid accidental turn offs while on the hwy, ect.

@WhoSaysWhat?: You know he didn't put it in neutral because that disconnects the engine from the drive wheels. That much is clear.

@digisplicer: They just prevent from going over a certain speed, usually 140ishh

Most of the comments so far are already saying the dead people should have known better. Why don't you all go to the funeral and tell his dead body what he SHOULD have done?

Anyway, there's no way I'm listening to the audio. I'm not the kind of person who watches the local news because it's full of thrillingly gruesome tragedies that happened to other people. Some people really get some sick kind of entertainment out of looking at car crashes, hearing about kids drowning in pools, or some gruesome murder/suicide.

Just let me know when Toyota's fixed their problem, and if they've been punished for being irresponsible. That's really all I need to know about.

I'm not going to listen to the audio. I don't need disturbing things like this in my psyche. Watching or listening to someone's last moments is too voyeuristic for my taste, but it seems like the publicity from this tragic accident will save a lot of other lives.

Generally, I feel that all 911 tapes should remain private but maybe this is a different case. I've got really mixed feelings about this.

@Chris Walters: Ah, didn't realize that. Funny how TV/radio fails to mention that bit. Commentators have been blasting this guy left and right about not turning the car off.

If their lexus has the push stop/start button you have to actually hold it in to turn off the car in this situation:

-If the vehicle is equipped with an Engine Start/Stop button, firmly and steadily push the button for at least three seconds to turn off the engine. Do NOT tap the Engine Start/Stop button.

Yeah, like I would remember that in this situation...

@Dominikanfrank: In my experience it's always been around 110 mph.

I always wondered why simply standing on the brakes doesn't work to fix this. Given that the car can slow down faster than it speeds up, I would think that in the battle of brakes vs. engine, the brakes would win.

Maybe ABS kicks in, and then you lose brakes due to lack of engine vacuum...

But yeah, pop the car in neutral (yes, your engine will bounce off the rev limiter), get to the side of the road, and then cut the ignition...

@dadelus: I've been driving on icey roads and had the brakes lock up on me a few times. I actually almost drove into my moms garage because of this, but I managed to get the car into reverse and slow it way down. Luckily for me it was a beater car, but there are options to most of these types of problems.

@GearheadGeek: What I meant was that there could have been a malfunction with the gearshift because of the speed other factor. I've never tried to put a car in neutral while going extremely fast or while holding the gas pedal down, so I'm just speculating. But, it seems quite plausible to me.

@Chris Walters: That kind of information doesn't need to just be in the owners manual, that's the kind of thing that needs a sticker... like the airbag warning stickers.

@corbyz: Seconded. It may ruin the visual awesomeness of the interior, but I'd rather live than have a stickerless car, thank you.

@digisplicer: Usually governors just put a cap on speed-unexpectedly cutting off the engine could be dangerous it its own right (although in this case it would have helped). I think the speed at which they kick in varies, although around 120 sounds about right.

Being a Trooper he would have been trained as well (if not better) then the 911 operator. I find it hard to believe he did not try everything that he could, to save himself and his family. However that is only speculation, so is what he did not do. Toyota acted so quickly to recall, because he WAS a trooper and they would have a very hard time showing user error.

Sirwired makes a good point and I don't understand why it wouldn't have worked in this case. When Audi was accused of unintentional acceleration (where the car accelerated without the gas pedal being pushed down) I thought they were able to show that the braking power of the car's brake system would always win over the accelerator. I agree that throwing the car into another gear or into neutral might have been useful, but the brakes alone should have been enough. Why weren't they?

This is tragic, but I've been getting recall notices from Toyota since about a month after I bought it... why did I get them, and it seems that not everyone did. I got them in excess! I bet I've received 10 since early 2008.

Also - maybe it was the way I was raised, but I understand the concept of putting a car in neutral, or stepping on the clutch, or shutting the engine off... I'm not trying to be crass, but I feel like everyone should understand these concepts before driving.

As much as I agree that people should know their cars, how about this titbit of info about Lexus from the linked NYT article??

-----
The researchers also found that consumers were likely to have problems shutting off the engine because the Lexus uses a start button instead of an ignition key.

"That removes the ability to instantaneously shut off the engine in the event of an emergency while the vehicle is in motion," it said.

The problem is that with the vehicle in motion the button must be depressed three seconds to cut off the engine. That's a safety measure to prevent the engine from being shut off inadvertently, Toyota said. But the report said owners would probably not know that because the owner's manual has no mention of the three-second requirement."

@dadelus: Psst, there is no Golden Poo-equivalent trophy on Consumerist for 'who can come up with the most ridiculous, callous OP-blaming comment'.

@dadelus:
It took me getting into one of these situations to learn what to do. I took drivers ed and all they tell you is hit the e-break and aim for something soft.

@corbyz: Well said, but don't give anyone ideas. You just know that if some of the "I'm such a better driver" commenters here actually knew the family, they'd be walking up to grieving family members at the funeral and blatting about it.

Fear is a tricky thing. It can kill us or save our lives.

However, trained or not, State Trooper or not, the man was, as we all are, only human.

Those of you that are sitting comfortably at your computer, claiming that he should have known how to handle that vehicle...you have no idea what was going through that man's mind. You can't possibly know exactly what transpired. You don't know what condition the vehicle was in.

Remember, there are always more than just the human factor in every situation.

@corbyz: "Why don't you all go to the funeral and tell his dead body what he SHOULD have done?"

How about instead of that, people learn from this incident what to do so they don't end up dead as well? What's the alternative, total media censorship and cover-up? Come on. Learning from a mistake requires acknowledgement of the mistake.

"Some people really get some sick kind of entertainment out of looking at car crashes, hearing about kids drowning in pools, or some gruesome murder/suicide."

Yeah, and I highly doubt these people into "murder porn" are consumerist readers. The reason this 911 call is important is precisely because it's shocking. It's the kind of thing they'll play on the news, and that combined with the shocking photos will get people's attention.

But hey, enjoy the view up there from your moral high ground. We'll be down here trying to stop other people from dying.

@digisplicer:

The govenor depends on the car and it only keeps it from going over a certain speed, normally it should be below the speed rating of the OEM tires, so on a lot of passengers cars that is around 118 or so. Neutral would probably work, as it disengages the drivetrain. Brakes or parking brake would have probably worked too, but who is to say in the same situation if anyone else would have thought of those things...

120mph, and the freeway ends in 0.5 miles. It sounds like the brakes were not working either.

Even if you stick a car in neutral, I'm pretty sure the car would take more than 0.5 miles to come to a stop.

@night_2004: Forgot to add this in. That car would have covered the remaining distance on the freeway in less than 15 seconds assuming the car was continuing to accelerate.

Man.. that really killed me listening to that.

A story from the SF Bay area ([www.mercurynews.com]) is similar. Here's some highlights from a "vindication" article published in the _San Jose Mercury News_ last week:

After Guadalupe Gomez's 2007 Toyota Camry careened out of control, mysteriously accelerating to more than 100 mph on a San Jose highway, no one quite believed his story that the engine simply surged on its own when it smashed into a Honda Accord, killing its driver in a burst of flames.

Now, they do.

"This poor man (Gomez) was just driving his car and this happened," said Mohinder Mann, the attorney representing the family of Troy Edwin Johnson, the 39-year-old driver of the Honda Accord. "He was very honest, he told everybody what happened, but CHP wanted to blame him."

"Toyota was attempting to put some blame on him, but he did everything he could to stop the car and prevent it from crashing, he was dodging cars and holding down the horn. He was very remorseful," said Gary Mann, an attorney who also represented the Johnson family and interviewed Gomez while investigating the crash.

For his part, Gomez, 70, of Redwood City, wants distance from the case for which he was arrested and sued.

An off-duty state trooper? He didn't know he could turn off the engine or shift out of drive into neutral? How horribly sad.

@SNForrester: I agree with you. The sister of a guy I work with was killed by her husband this summer, and they released the 911 tapes from the friend she had managed to text right before it happened. It actually was a huge deal because she had worked at the local Fox syndicate, and the anchors all said it changed their views entirely on releasing 911 tapes, but they eventually did so in the hopes of drawing attention to domestic violence. I couldn't bring myself to listen to them, nor to this recording. I understand the idea of drawing attention and making an impact, but it's just too much for me.

Its easy to second guess people after the fact.

One complaint I have about modern cars is that more and more they drive themselves and the driver has little control at a certain point. I always drove a manual transmission car until my last car purchase. I loved having more control over my car and having the option to disengage the tramsission. But its very difficult to find a mid-range car with a manual transmission these days, they just don't make them. So I have a car with automatic and or the trip-switch thingy, but I leave it in automatic most of the time because the semi-manual just seems weird without the actual clutch.

@Gracegottcha: Decided not to take a glance at ANY previous comments, eh?

@night_2004: If the brakes don't work, you should downshift until you are in the lowest gear, then slowly apply the e-brake/parking brake.

@WhoSaysWhat?: You can always shift into neutral. Your rate of speed has nothing to do with gear shifting.

Driving a manual transmission car on the freeway would be impossible if you couldn't shift into neutral at any time.

Ntrl slctn

(smn hd t sy t)

@sardonicbastard: "The mistake" in this case was Toyota's decision to sit on their hands for TWO YEARS instead of fixing the problem so tragedies like this didn't happen.

And "trying to stop other people from dying" does not involve blaming the victim, or preening about 'I was in a similar situation and I did the right thing'. For that matter, "we" don't even seem to be clear on what the driver should have done, as half the people are insisting he should have turned off the car and half are insisting that you should never turn off the car because it affects the power brakes.

But hey, enjoy the warm, smug glow of pretending that the I'm So Much Smarter game is really about saving lives.