Blog

Toyota Prius Driver Claims 'I Was Laying On the Brakes But It Wasn't Slowing Down' and Still No Expansion of Recall

James Sikes, a 61 year old real estate agent from San Diego, was driving his Toyota Prius monday afternoon and went to pass a car on the road but after he passed the other driver his car kept going but not because he wanted it to.  James Sikes Toyota Prius was accelerating uncontrollably and he was unable to stop it. He says that his gas pedal was sticking all the way out and he was applying pressure to the breaks as hard as he could and the Prius continued to speed down the highway without him even touching the gas pedal for 30 miles. 

Mr. Sikes made a call to a 911 dispatcher and explained his situation and how he could not stop the Prius from accelerating.  The 911 dispatcher sent a police officer to the highway that Mr. Sikes was weaving in and out of traffic on while going 90 mph with no control over the situation.  The police officer guided Mr. Sikes over a loud speaker while driving next to him on the highway on how to slow the vehicle down.  The police officer was able to assist him by having him apply the brake with his foot as hard as he could while also applying the emergency brake which was able to get the car to slow down to 50 mph at which time he shut off the engine to the Prius and let it slow down to a stop by itself. 

The twist to this story is that Mr. Sikes knew his car was part of the recent Toyota recall and took it into his local Toyota dealership to have the repair done on it but was informed when he got there that some how his car was not part of the Toyota recall.  He was told that based on his VIN (vehicle identification number) that his car was not a car that was affected by the acceleration issue that many Toyota's were recalled for.  So this leaves the lingering questions still unanswered "Did Toyota recall all of their defective vehicles?".