Sensible Erection | Tinfoil Hats for all Toyotas!

Sunday, 21 March 2010

quote [ Toyota vehicles have been having a problem with sudden, uncontrollable acceleration lately. It's been variously attributed to faulty circuits and driver error, but the real culprit might be radiation from beyond the skies. ]

Original article with quote is here:
http://io9.com/5498094/space-rays-might-be-responsible-for-crashing-your-car
I realized the FreePress article has a lot more on the story, so I changed the main link to go there instead.

[sci&tech] [by max_damage78@1:05pmGMT] [+3 Interesting]

Comments

wiinter said @ 2:05pm GMT on 21st Mar
Well, since we're throwing around crazy theories. What if GM is somehow behind this, trying to even out the playing field after their PR bomb? Ah, now that I typed that out, I'm pretty sure it's already been said 1000 times elsewhere.

max_damage78 said @ 3:05pm GMT on 21st Mar [Score:1 Interesting]
OOO!! Someone is hacking into the cars via SatNav connections.

Or maybe Skynet is doing what was predicted in the novel T2: The Future War by installing remote interfaces in all machines being produced or upgraded in automated factories, then beginning a 2-month long rash of increasingly brutal killings using these now remote controlled vehicles to cause horrific accidents.

spite48 said @ 3:07pm GMT on 21st Mar
What if someone at GM found out that any Toyota may undergo potentially fatal acceleration if subjected to a very low level EMP?

spite48 said @ 3:06pm GMT on 21st Mar
Doesn't make it any less likely. Industrial sabotage would help explain why the bug has been difficult to detect - even with massive scrutiny.

They'll figure it out eventually.

bluecalx said @ 2:19pm GMT on 21st Mar
Tinfoil hats don't protect against cosmic rays.

Besides, they're basically saying two things: Toyota's ECU has no error correction inbuilt; and if any other car had no error correction they would have similar random acceleration problems.

I call bullshit on both - it's a bug, plain and simple.

sanepride said @ 3:33pm GMT on 21st Mar
Or mass hysteria, plain and simple.

bluecalx said @ 6:57pm GMT on 21st Mar [Score:1 Funny]
Oh no! Mass hysteria!!!!!

EPT said @ 10:33pm GMT on 21st Mar
I hear that mass hysteria kills kittens!

no, wait...

theolypse said @ 4:43am GMT on 22nd Mar
No, man, it's the treatment for hysteria that does it.

Naruki said @ 2:59pm GMT on 22nd Mar
I thought the treatment for hysteria was to induce orgasm. Do that many people really get off on killing kittens?

spite48 said @ 2:06pm GMT on 23rd Mar
OMFG people kill kittens for sexual gratification?!

Naruki said @ 3:00pm GMT on 23rd Mar
According to Theolypse they do. At least Glenn Beck only snuffed a young girl in 1990. Regular people snuff kittens!

Soylent Green is kittens!

5thEarth said @ 5:08pm GMT on 21st Mar
The only issue I have with this is that these cosmic rays would appear to be causing unintended acceleration--and no other effect, ever It stretches credibility to say that Toyotas suffer from completely random glitches caused by cosmic rays, and that these glitches consistently cause the same result, and, not, for example, a misfiring engine, a faulty regenerative braking system, or a clock that displays the wrong time of day. No, these completely random and unpredictable glitches have completely consistent effects.

Riiiiight.

wieder said @ 5:53pm GMT on 21st Mar
Not really. Considering even in the article it talks about the fact that this is typically worked around by having triple redundancy. It could be that somebody supplied a part which controls acceleration which does NOT have said redundancy even if Toyota thinks it does (perhaps the supplier was having a hard time meeting quarters and figured "better to shirk for a couple deliveries than go out of business!!!"

Thus there would only be one part exposed to the risk and thus why it would only show up in Toyotas in this one form. Everything else with electronics at a scale at risk of being damaged for the most part is properly built with the redundancy.

So the idea has merit, but still unlikely in my opinion.

PottyMouth said @ 5:56pm GMT on 21st Mar
Unless you're talking about one specific component with a single job to do; if that component is more susceptible to cosmic radiation than the components around it, then it's plausible that randomly-occurring events would have consistent effects.

mischa said @ 5:11pm GMT on 21st Mar
I guess toyota will try anyway to remove themselves from culpability..

damnit said @ 5:25pm GMT on 21st Mar
These are the ages of the people who reported problems with their Toyota: 60, 61, 63, 66, 68, 71, 72, 72, 77, 79, 83, 85, 89

Chop-Logik said @ 6:11pm GMT on 21st Mar
Where is this information from?

leezurd said @ 6:27pm GMT on 21st Mar
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/OpEd-Contributor/I-am-not-afraid-of-my-Toyota-Prius-87361597.html

mwoody said @ 8:54pm GMT on 21st Mar [Score:2 Informative]
In the 24 cases where driver age was reported or readily inferred, the drivers included those of the ages 60, 61, 63, 66, 68, 71, 72, 72, 77, 79, 83, 85, 89 (emphasis mine)

LA Times article, source of information

Blog post summarizing information from said article

Google spreadsheet summarizing information from said article

The ages these sources list are 18, 21, 21, 20s, 32, 34, 36, 44, 45, 47, 56, 56, 57, 58, 60, 60, 63, 60s, 66, 68, 71, 72, 72, 75, 75, 77, 77, 79, 83, 87. Which has a definite statistical lean towards older passengers, but fails to take into account that half of the reports include age (perhaps older drivers are more likely to have their age taken into account when a report is filed), the median age of Prius owners (everyone I know who has one is over 50, for example), or possible reporting bias on any of the three successive sources listed here.

Which isn't to say that there is or isn't a problem, just pointing out some misinformation in the OP and some very poor use of statistics in these articles.

snowfox said @ 12:48am GMT on 22nd Mar
I was thinking the same thing. Without the average age of the vehicle owners, the age of the people involved in the accidents isn't necessarily meaningful. Even so, we could still make it meaningful simply by comparing it to the percentage of similar senior citizen accidents that occur per car of other cars. This would then account for the situations where a senior citizen mistook the gas for the brake so we can adjust for them and figure out how many of these incidences were probably not the result of user error in acceleration.

leezurd said @ 3:52am GMT on 22nd Mar
mwoody

Umm...I simply found the article Chop asked about.

Sorry if answering a question for someone touched a nerve with you.

mwoody said @ 2:35pm GMT on 22nd Mar
If you mean the downmod, I just didn't think that article should be rated up. Saying the ages of the drivers "included" and then listing only those numbers that prove his point is tremendously slimy. It's also three levels removed from the actual source of that information.

Chop-Logik said @ 10:53pm GMT on 22nd Mar
I rated it informative because it linked to the sources of the broader range of ages, similar to the information in your comment.

taeyn said @ 5:38pm GMT on 21st Mar
Hmm... been known to effect aircraft?

Are going to have to start turning off all electronic devices while pulling in and out of the driveway soon?

maryyugo said @ 11:44pm GMT on 21st Mar
Better hope there's no effect on that laser the doctor is aiming inside your eye.

max_damage78 said @ 5:58pm GMT on 21st Mar

maryyugo said @ 10:07pm GMT on 21st Mar [Score:1 Insightful]
Damn that's annoying. It's also being done on a fully functioning car being operated on a straight deserted road. Pretty useless.

leezurd said @ 4:02am GMT on 22nd Mar
Actually, there's a second video (without cursing) that involves a curve.

But, yeah, fully functioning...I get it.

maryyugo said @ 7:32pm GMT on 21st Mar
IRRC no cause was ever determined for undesired acceleration in Audi's many years ago. Maybe this will also turn out to user error. The case in San Diego with the cop driving probably wasn't but that might have been floor mats jammed under the pedal.

Still and all, I wish all cars had an emergency throttle off electro-mechanical (no computer at all) override switch with a guard. Something like this. A lot of industrial machines and aircraft have them.

leezurd said @ 7:36pm GMT on 21st Mar
Watch the video that max_damage78 posted.

maryyugo said @ 10:06pm GMT on 21st Mar
Apart from how annoying that shitty video is, it doesn't answer the issue that the push button switch and the shift quadrant of the Prius are probably drive by wire. I'm not sure but they may also be computer-interlock controlled. If so, it is entirely possible to go through the motions in the video and not have the car shut down if a computer program error or other fault prevents it.

That's why I think there should be (in ALL drive by wire cars) an absolute electromechanical cut off switch that removes all drive power irrevocably and in a non-computer non-drive-by-wire fashion.

maryyugo said @ 10:10pm GMT on 21st Mar
What I mean is: postulate a rarely exhibited software bug which locks the accelerator on full, causes the shift to neutral to fail to change anything, and ignores the 3 second shut down command. Unlikely, yes. Completely impossible? Having see what I've seen industrial circuitry and computers do, probably not.

leezurd said @ 4:07am GMT on 22nd Mar
Got it.

However, the guy in San Diego, from what I have seen, ultimately stopped by turning off the car. So, I'm guessing the info put out in the irritating video should be put forth to the bulk of prius owners as a precautionary measure.

But, I agree, a kill switch couldn't hurt.

jackbnimbler said @ 5:55am GMT on 22nd Mar
I can't help but think of it like this, that kill switch as pictured above probably costs about 10 bucks or maybe less retail. It probably takes an hour for a person like me to install, maybe more, but a professional could probably install it in 5 minutes.

So my question is: Why exactly is there not one of these in every single vehicle on the road today?

Cheap, Simple, Safe.

Can anyone give me a realistic downside to this?

maryyugo said @ 7:05am GMT on 22nd Mar
Well, obviously I favor it but it's not without issues and risks. First, what exactly do you kill in a standard car and what else do you have to kill in a hybrid? Will you lose power steering and brakes? And if so, how will that affect the ability to negotiate a downhill course or curving roads? And of course, how will your new glitzy Belchfire turbo-V6 hypersynergisticdrive car's video game interior look with a switch from a world war 2 fighter plane in mid dash? I'm for it but it won't happen.

assbastard said @ 7:23am GMT on 22nd Mar
Kids.

wieder said @ 9:16pm GMT on 22nd Mar
Because building dependence on a kill switch for the 0.01% of circumstances it's the right solution in consumer vehicles would likely be even more dangerous long term as people accidentally hit them (kids as already stated), or panic and hit it without understanding the right time (or whether they should be seeking a kill switch or CONTROLLING the vehicle).

There is a reason consumer vehicles actually try to prevent you from changing the state of the vehicle while in motion. Some of it of course is to prevent damage to the vehicle, but the course of causing said damage is likely to cause wrecks. Or if it didn't cause damage (such as a transmission that can be slammed into reverse from 5 th gear without problems)... the vehicle would still come with mechanisms to prevent you from even going from 1st gear into reverse, etc.

Depends on the vehicle design of course, some are more protective than others. It's the nature of designing safety systems. The more perfectly you remove the human element, the more horrified we get when the technological element also messes up. We respond to 1 technology related death more violently than we do to 100 individual human error deaths. Mostly because it's an "out of species" kill.

HAL 9000 said @ 7:46pm GMT on 21st Mar
We've seen this sort of thing before Dave, and it has always been due to human error.

fz75 said @ 6:41am GMT on 22nd Mar
My theory is the real problem exists behind the fuck steering wheels.

Cock suckers, sell me ur Toyota cheap and go buy urself a GM!

sacrelicious said @ 4:02pm GMT on 23rd Mar [Score:1 Funny]
Toyota: just try and stop us!