July 14th 6:25am I was driving in the freeway going below 50m/hrs, there's at least 5 cars distance from the other car,I started to slow down and stepped on my brake but my 4runner went faster. I pumped the second time and stepped harder on my brake but unfortunately it didn't stopped till I hit another vehicle. I was so scared. Now my truck is at the collision center and still waiting for legal dept. of Toyota to do an internal inspection. They are too slow to address the problem. I signed already an EDR form so that they can inspect but still they are giving diff. excuses and it almost a month already. Just want to share my scary experienced. Lastly, the airbag didn't go off.
Thanks. tgg4150
I'm really sorry you were in a crash and hope that you are alright! It's really scary when a car's safety features don't work how they're supposed to, especially when in a situation between life and death. This is the first time I've heard of braking issues with the 4Runner as well. The failure of a brake to engage when your car is barreling toward another car may seem like your car is accelerating when it's actually not (as one's mind usually associates decreasing distance between you and the car in front of you with decreasing speed, the absence of decreasing speed may seem like acceleration).
Four possibilities of what happened:
(1) neither brakes nor accelerator engaged
(2) brakes engaged
(3) accelerator engaged
(4) both brakes and accelerator engaged
(1) may be consistent with your story if the heuristic bias plays out.
(2) may be consistent with your story if the many brake redundancies fail (this should be fairly obvious upon investigation as the braking system is mechanical, not electrical).
(3) may be consistent with your story.
(4) may be consistent with your story if the software and hardware redundancies for deactivation of the accelerator pedal (when the brake is activated) all failed. (4) may also occur if ABS was activated, but you didn't note that you felt anything unusual when you applied the brakes (for instance, a pulsing resistance).
(4) is highly unlikely, (2) can be investigated by looking if there was any mechanical failure in the brake system from pedal to brake pads. (1) and (3) would be difficult to prove in the positive or the negative, but only situations (2) and (4) would put liability on the car itself. It might be useful to look at the conditions necessary for airbag deployment:
Given: Your 4R's airbag did not deploy,
If: (A) brake activation is necessary for (B) airbag deployment and (C) the circuit for airbag deployment is independent of the potentially failed mechanical redundancies of the brakes,
Then: failure of airbag deployment suggests, more strongly, either failure of multiple redundancies.
It should be that airbag deployment can happen without the brakes being applied, even if you're going more than 10-15 miles per hour. This is something that's worth looking in to.
I hope I didn't miss any possibilities (only two binary variables: braking and accelerating which are either (a) on, or (b) off) and that this breakdown makes the analysis a little more logical. I know how scary it can be to have your life in jeopardy and really hope you come to a positive resolution to this incident.
Attached is a PDF that might better help diagram what I'm trying to say.
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Also, it might be useful for you to post any pictures you might have of the accident and our copies of the police report filed, if any.
