911 Call: Lexus Accelerates Out Of Control Due To Floor Mats, Prompting Recall
30 September 2009, 4:35 PM. By Alex Alvarez
Serious Journalist Rick Sanchez aired a 911 call depicting the moment before a Lexus holding four terrified passengers accelerated uncontrollably at an intersection.
The call was placed by off-duty California Highway Patrol officer Mark Saylor and three members of his family, all of whom died after the car’s floor mats became stuck in the gas pedal, causing the vehicle to accelerate out of control:
The incident has prompted a massive recall and investigation into Lexus and Toyotas’ floor mats. The recall affects floor mats in 2007 and 2008 Lexus ES 350 vehicles and some Toyota models. In the meantime, officials urge drivers of these cars to remove their floor mats.
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So just turn the engine off, put it in neutral let the engine blow. How the hell do people die because of a floormat?
How? Because they were stupid.
They DID, after all, buy a Toyota…thinking it was “better”.
Maybe now their millions of Toyota-buying friends will realize
what pieces of garbage those things are.
Uhmm stupid comment. An oversized floor mat designed for the Lexus RX350 was mistakenly put in the doomed ES350. Toyota makes quality cars. It was failure of the dealership that caused this accident.
Toyota are biggest pieces of shit I´ve ever seen.I´m living among cars for 15 years now and would NEVER buy anything from japan car maker.They just brainwashed the public that they make quality cars…but every Ford or european car are now better quality… And it´s not about wrong floor mats…
The risk of death is still big even with original floor mats…
Don´t ever buy a Toyota if you like your own life…
You are a total ASShole!!! People DIED!!! What’s wrong with you???????
Amen to that!
Ummm… wrong. They didn’t buy this car, it was a rental. A rental, by the way that had been returned three days earlier with the complaint of the accelerater sticking. These people were not at fault.
I agree with put the car in neutral, don’t shut it off because then you lose steering. This guy was obviously to panicked to think straight. I have only owned North American Vehicles and have also had mats jam the gas pedal but i just reached down and pulled the mat back before i got to 120mph. Very tragic but i don’t think it was the cars fault.
Gary
Ontario, Canada
This is crazy, another case of blaming someone else for a problem we can easily fix ourselves. I think anyone who has driven any distance at all has had something like a mat getting stuck on the gas pedal…you reach down and move it. If the pedal is stuck somewhere else you shift to nuetral or shut off the car, you will not lose steering, but you will lose power steering which meens you may have to put effort into turning the wheel, but it will turn. Sad that people had to die in such a tragic way, but lets face the facts that this was easily overcome by a little effort or thinking!
The ignition stuck guys, and he tried putting it in neutral… another failure which you guys would know about if you didn’t jump to such ignorant conclusions and actually looked into this case. This guy was a police officer who was trained to think under high pressure. To assume he was “stupid” IS stupid. And just so that you know, when I turn off the ignition in my car, the steering wheel DOES lock up. May God bless these precious souls. May the rest of us thank God for our own safety and may we keep our ignorant thoughts to ourselves…
What about the 911 operator that didn’t tell him to just put the car on neutral?
Because the 911 operator is just a person who doesn’t have the answers to everything right in front of him. The whole conversation took all of less than 10 seconds. By the time he got the location of the emergency, as he was trained to do, there were only about 4 seconds til impact. What could he do? The operator was not at fault.