My wife was driving our 2010 RX350 last week. She was on a private driveway, going slow to make a right turn when the car accelerated rapidly (engine was racing) and the brake would not engage, She hit a large stump along the road, and finally stopped when she pumped the brakes. Quite a bit of damage to front end and undercarriage on the right side. Insurance totaled the car. Fortunately the airbags did not deploy and she was not injured.

I contacted Lexus. They were very responsive, took details, and have scheduled an inspection by a firm they apparently have on call for this kind of thing. When I was scheduling the inspection, I was told one inspector in my area (Oregon) was doing 2 other “UA’’s” that week.
Looking for information on how Lexus resolves this kind of thing. How common is it? Do they make a settlement?

Tony

 

I work for an insurance company. I see this sort of claim every now and then.

We have someone inspect the EDR logs if an owner is adamant about the vehicle accelerating on its own. It always comes back user error (driver mistakenly stomping gas pedal instead of brake pedal). The data recorder in your vehicle will show exactly what happened.

Please update us with what they find.

 

I hope that your wife is okay after the accident.
I can’t say that I’ve heard of any cases since the big scandal, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

Do you know if the gas pedal recall was ever done on your car? Mine is also a 2010 and looking over the service history back in 11/2012 the owner had it done on mine.

Service: MODIFY THE ACCELERATOR PEDAL
Description: MODIFY THE ACCELERATOR PEDAL ~|~RECALL OF CERTAIN 2010 RX350 AND RX450H VEHICLES TO RESHAPE THE ACCELERATOR PEDAL, REPLACE WINTER MATS IF APPROPRIATE, WASH AND VACUUM AND FILL WITH GAS ~|~RECALL 9LG ~|~15597 RESHAPE GAS PEDAL.

 

Guess there are exceptions to every thing. My wife was starting a right turn, coasting, foot off the accelerator. When the car surged and depressing the brake failed, she looked down and verified her foot was on the brake pedal.. Not operator error. Also, OE floor mat, suspended pedal, 2 plus inches between mat and pedal. She had 4 witnesses who saw the incident.

Saw Lexus/Toyota settled a $1.5B judgement on this issue.

 

The settlement was a while back, when they slide the recall I mentioned. At the time I had a new 07 Camry SE that they did the recall on. They shaved down the pedal so it wouldn’t catch on a aftermarket mat, replaced my quality Toyota all weather mats with paper thin mats, took out insulation from underneath the carpeting and reflagged the computer so that you couldn’t hit the gas and the brakes at the same time. If you did the gas input would be overridden. The big example in the case was a cop that killed his family in a loaner Lexus ES I think it was. They concluded that the mats were doubled up and the all weather mat wasn’t meant for the ES and basically wedged the gas pedal. At the time I was 20 and I never understood why he didn’t slam the car into park, or neutral. Most of the settlement I believe was because Toyota ignored the issue and it became to many cases and the fact that you could accelerate and brake at the same time. I’d be suprised if your truck made it this far without the recall being done. I tried to say I didn’t want it back then but the service guy said I’d have to sign a waiver and it could of voided my warranty/future liabilities if I did.

 

Found the maintenance record on Lexus Drivers. The recall was done, the accelerator pedal was reshaped in September of 2012, before we bought the car. nothing about floor mats. We had OE mats.

 

If the car surged forward while it was coasting and she did not touch the gas pedal, then the problem is different then the one you're referring to form years ago. One thing that comes to my mind is bad wiring/wet wiring causing momentary short in the accelerator circuit.
Bad wiring is very possible in a 12 years old car.

 

All vehicles have two independent [enough separation] systems ... Gas pedal to increase engine RPM and brakes to slow down the wheel rotation. There can be interference from the carpet (or any other object in the foot well) which can interfere with either. Hopefully the data will be recoverable to shed some light.

There is a different aspect of human interface where the physical separation of the two pedals {along with type of foot wear (sandals/shoes/size-of-foot)} that can impact how the driver manipulate the controls.

In normal circumstances the brakes over power the force created by the engine. [Brake fading and brake failure are the exception]

Finally, if you intend to pursue legal action, please contact a lawyer (to protect your interests) or work with Lexus. There is a procedure which must be followed to protect/recover the electronic and physical evidence.

Salim

 

K don’t forget to update pls

 

In a former life, and this was many years ago, I worked at a law firm defending several automobile manufacturers from product liability lawsuits. We had a few unwanted acceleration cases, mostly with Japanese manufacturers (not Toyota or Lexus). Neither the defense experts nor the plaintiffs' experts ever found a mechanical or electrical cause for the unwanted acceleration in our cases. The plaintiffs' experts tried very hard to blame various electronic and mechanical engine and transmission systems but failed every time.

In every case, the problem was pedal confusion by the driver. Despite the drivers claiming they were sure they had their feet on the correct pedal, such as your wife claims, that was found to be incorrect in our cases.
That many cars have subtle ergonomic issues that lead drivers in these situations to improperly line up their feet and body position on the pedals and thus hit the gas when they are sure they are hitting the brake pedal. The ergonomic and biomechanical experts found that shorter drivers were more likely to have problems with pedal confusion due to sitting closer to the controls. Which leads me to ask how tall is your wife?

As Salim pointed out and as all experts agree, the brakes on any car are sufficient to overcome the engine and stop it.

As a 2012 government study explained: https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2015/09/23/livermore-gym-crash-pedal-error-dangerous-phenomenon-among-elderly-drivers/​​​​​​

The 2012 federal study found that almost two-thirds of all pedal errors involve young and elderly women — the highest percentage being women 75 or older — parking at slow speeds. In May, the federal traffic safety agency, citing data from 2000 to 2010, said those types of crashes occur 16,000 times a year in the United States, or 44 incidents a day. The trend is particularly striking, federal investigators said, because in 60 percent of all automobile accidents, men are behind the wheel.

The study hypothesized that women may be more frequently involved in such accidents because so many occur in commercial parking lots where women drivers outnumber men and because women tend to have shorter statures that may increase the distance they must reach for the pedals.

“Explaining this anomaly may be important as a starting point in designing crash countermeasures,” the study concluded.

https://www.latimes.com/business/la-...414-story.html

 

Another cause of these types of accidents are morons driving while wearing flip-flops. I was sideswiped by an idiot wearing flip-flops on a morning in June 1994 while driving into the office on a rural road. The guy was driving an old VW Beetle and came around a sweeping curve directly towards me. I could see that he was looking straight down into the floorboard and he was panicking for some reason (his flip-flop had caught on the accelerator pedal). Fortunately I had enough time to swerve to the right so he sideswiped my Chevy S-10 pickup instead of crashing directly head-on into me. He never looked up before he sideswiped me. I eased over to the side of the road and had to exit my truck through the passenger door. His VW jumped the ditch and wound up in a grassy field. He was fortunate that it remained upright and did not roll. He was out of the car and sitting in the grassy field with his head in his hands by the time I walked over to him. Neither one of us was injured, but I was mad as hell. The investigating Highway Patrol trooper charged him with an unsafe movement and his insurance company had to pay for all repairs to my truck. I'm guessing his VW was totaled.

After the trooper left the scene I verbally reamed that guy for being stupid enough to drive wearing flip-flops. He just sat there in the grass looking sheepish, not willing to look me in the eye....

 

Hello,

I wanted to share my mom's recent experience with her 2024 RX 350 and spread this awareness to this similar experience. While backing into her driveway, the car unexpectedly accelerated in reverse, even though her foot wasn't on the pedal, she tried to stomp on the breaks but the car would not stop. As a result this caused damage to her property and the car. We took the car to the Lexus dealership, but the salesman told us that the EDR data would likely indicate it was her fault. He mentioned that in his 20 years at Lexus, he'd seen about 200 similar cases where the blame was always placed on the driver, with Lexus never being found at fault.

After sending the car for inspection, we were not surprised when they concluded that it was indeed my mom’s fault, claiming her foot was on the gas pedal per the EDR data. My dad considered pursuing legal action, but they strongly advised against it, saying he wouldn’t win and should be grateful that no one was injured. We're feeling really lost about what to do next.

 

Sorry to hear about the harrowing experience.

What you choose to pursue legally is your choice. You may find some lawyers who would like to represent you too due to potential money involved.

But

Brakes are much stronger and are able to overcome engine power. The only time the brakes fail is when they are being used excessively and after heating up they start fading and if the vehicle has high speed the slowing down is slow. I understand a pedal was being pushed but it might have been the gas pedal and not the brake pedal.

What next?
Family discussion? Legal resources? Dispose the vehicle that you have no confidence in.

Salim
PS: I understand that your mom is convinced that it was the brake pedal she was pushing to stop. I see little point in convincing her otherwise. That is a fact to her and it should be left at that.

 

The NHTSA report on unwanted acceleration concluded that it is almost always the driver's fault for the pedal confusion. That it was more likely to occur with short drivers who sat close to the steering wheel. It was also more prevalent with elderly drivers.
If your mother is elderly, short and sits close to the steering wheel that greatly increases the chances of this being a case of pedal confusion. They have very rarely found any mechanical fault in the vehicles involved in unwanted acceleration.
The best thing to do in these situations is to press the start button for at least 3 seconds to shut down the engine or shift into neutral.

 

Loose floor mats that can slide around and get trapped on top of the pedals can also contribute to these types of accidents.