The case with the police yelling though the loudspeaker was an attempt at fraud. From a Yahoo Prius group posting:
** Sikes filed for bankruptcy in 2008,
** and the Prius is his sole remaining car.
** Bankruptcy court records show that in 2008, Toyota was listed as a $19,000 creditor, the value of the leased Prius, which has to be returned.
** His total debt was $700,000, and he has had a Mercedes, a boat and a motor home repossessed. The bank also took back a 2007 Dodge Ram, leaving him and his wife with just the Prius.
GET THAT? The Prius has to be returned--Sikes is bankrupt and will have no other car. It gets better...
** Sikes filed two burglary reports (totaling $59,000) that could not be substantiated, i.e. false reports.
** He was also paid by insurance for $7,400 worth of clothes and a saxophone supposedly stolen from his car.
** And then there's the adult swinger website Sikes runs..."The Adult lifestyle, wife swapping, hook-up, Swinger clubs, adult social club, booty call, Friends with Benefits, NASCA" with webchats, message boards and other services.
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If you should have an emergency situation in a Prius:
First, stomp and hold the brakes down. "Stomp, stay, steer" has been recommended as the best method to stop a modern car for years by programs such as Motorweek--there is nothing new, Prius specific, or even Toyota specific here. Stomping will activate brake-override and bring the engine down to idle. It will also engage a panic mode that will put extra force on the brakes. Second use one of the methods below to shift to neutral. Third use method #5 to stop the engine.
1. Press Park.
2. Shift to reverse.
3. Shift from B to anything other than D.
The first three methods act instantly. The rest require you to hold the button/lever down for a minimum of three seconds but sometimes longer to activate. None of the methods will harm the Prius in any way.
4. Hold the shifter in N for a few seconds.
5. Press and hold the Power button for several seconds to put the Prius in ACC mode. ACC mode means: Neutral, no power steering, engine off, traction battery disconnected, power brakes on.
Although I haven't tried it, using the parking brake is unlikely to spin the Prius due to vehicle stability control (VSC) which has been standard on Prius' from 2007 on and optional from 2004 to 2006. VSC should keep the Prius going straight.
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- Dont's:
* panic
This is always a good idea. If you've practiced an emergency stop in whatever car you're driving (and made sure the other drivers in your household know what to do as well) you're not likely to panic in a real emergency.
* pull the emergency brake
This is usually good advice. It's probably not applicable in the Prius but why take a chance--unless you've practiced it so you know first hand what it will do.
* try not to turn the car off. this will cause you to lose power at the brakes
This is not correct. The brakes in the Prius are powered by an electrical pump rather than engine vacuum, so you will have power brakes even if the Prius is totally off. You will lose power steering, but at high speeds, that's irrelevant because power steering is just to help you turn the wheel when parking.
* BUY A TOYOTA or LEXUS
The Prius is really one of the safest cars out there.
I would recommend not RENTING any high powered car with which you are unfamiliar and which may be in dubious mechanical condition.
And I would add one more "Don't"
Don't fall for media and political hysteria. Wait for the real facts.
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The CHP officer and his family were not in a Prius, they were in a RENTAL Lexus which can accelerate from zero to sixty in under four seconds. Any car with that much power gives you no time to recover from any kind of failure (and all cars have failures occasionally).
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