printTorquemada’s onslaught against Toyota has signaled to others in the business of shakedown to try their luck. That was what James Sikes, in his unstoppable Prius, was up to, as the malfunctioning media broadcast a blow-by-blow account of his Prius gone wild, while network bimbos looked on, shaking empty heads and tsk-tsking loudly.
Sikes was trying out the trick Rhonda Smith of Sevierville, Tenn., pioneered, and with which she won the Congressional inquisitors to her side. Smith’s run-away “Herbie” was a Lexus 350 ES sedan. You don’t want to get into one of those death traps.
Toyota Motor Corp. dismissed the story of a man [Sikes] who claimed his Prius sped out of control on the California freeway, saying Monday that its own tests found the car’s gas pedal and backup safety system were working just fine.
The automaker stopped short of saying James Sikes had staged a hoax last week but said his account did not square with a series of tests it conducted on the gas-electric hybrid.
The Regulator in the person of U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif) was looking over Toyota’s shoulder during the testing. We’re safe! He follows the proud tradition of the Floridian Republican, John Mica and Jason Chaffetz.
During the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform inquisition, last month, “in florid language,” Mica blasted a Toyota official: “‘I’m embarrassed for you, sir,’ Mica shrieked, clutching his smoldering toupee. Not much better was Chaffetz. This Republican admonished Mr. Inaba for an internal Toyota brief that called ‘the American government safety agency under the Obama administration less ‘industry friendly.'”
This revelatory reality—at least to Republicans—had pushed the Toyota team into a dalliance with the regulators. Any serious student of economics knows that regulation forces an entrepreneur to substitute viable, voluntary trades and transactions with politicized decision making. But what does Chaffetz [and his fellow Republicans] know?
Political Class Dismissed had an article from Forbes magazine that describes the incident from every angle. I think I have the right link to the original article. “http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/12/toyota-autos-hoax-media-opinions-contributors-michael-fumento.html?boxes=Homepagechannels” How could anybody be so dumb, not the driver but the MSM and Congress.
Yes, the onslaught of people hoping to get a pay day out of Toyota has definitely begun. I heard a story on the radio yesterday where a driver claimed her car’s accelerator mysteriously went all the way to the floor on it’s own, causing her accident (who wants to admit they were driving and text messaging). [Or while stupid] Of course, nowhere in the story did they mention that on a “fly by wire” accelerator, it is literally IMPOSSIBLE for this to happen. The way these work, to use a simple illustration, is to imagine an old dial type house thermostat with a pedal mounted to it. This is basically how the sensor for the accelerator works. Now have you ever had your house thermostat inexplicably dial itself to 100*? Living in the age of the idiot is becoming more painful every day.
Dan