Toyota's runaway-car worries may not stop at floor mats

CHP patrol officer's must go through CHP driving school and pass before they even go to police academy. If they can't do that part, they fail.

I think the point people are trying to make is that maybe this guy was above average in driving ability because of his training and this still happened to him.

Also consider the fact that he might not have even been a patrol officer, he might have been a bookkeeper or even a motorcycle officer.

 

Above average driving, or not, a mistake can be made at any level of skill. When it's all said and done, I hope we know if he made a mistake or not, if so what it was. It Doesn't seem likely we will ever know though.

 

They speculate on what should be done to avoid it.

That's good...

But - when your in a life threatening situation where seconds (or less) makes the difference between life & death...... there's no way in hell some of these people had any time to think about what to do and how to do it. The *moment* happens so fast, you're lucky if you remember it.

 

I'm not intending to criticize the CHP officer. My comment on knowing how to operate equipment before it is used is generic and made in response to the article speculating that perhaps the fact that the Lexus ES350 had the "smart key" system prevented the driver from shutting the engine down and that some drivers are "confused" by the autostick transmissions.

It is an extremely tragic event that unfortunately some details will never be known. Like many have been saying and all the articles state, it is all up in the air as to what really happened. I'm simply giving my two cents regarding the situation, not the drivers skills or motives.