Toyota is reportedly planning to roll out a new feature to prevent accidents caused by pressing the accelerator instead of the brake pedal, resulting in unintended acceleration. The safety function will suppress engine output if the gas pedal is mistakenly pressed when there is a person in front of the vehicle, thereby preventing the vehicle from accelerating towards the pedestrian.
Retrofit safety devices that can suppress such cases of unintended acceleration caused by pressing the wrong pedal are already available on the market, but only work when sensors detect an obstacle such as a wall or another car in the direction the vehicle is travelling and often do not respond to pedestrians or bicycles.
The Toyota system would gradually decelerate the vehicle when the accelerator is pressed suddenly, even if there are no obstacles out in front, making it the first major domestic automaker to incorporate this kind of function.
According to sources, the function may be added to Toyota vehicles that have already been sold to customers, the Yomiuri Shimbun reports. The sources add that the company plans for the new feature to be retrofittable into already sold vehicles for a fee, which it aims to set at 50,000 yen (RM1,960) or less, as it believes that response and take-up will be poor if it is too expensive.
The feature is to be introduced starting with models such as the Prius and Aqua hybrids, which are popular among elderly drivers, and will eventually be opened up to other models.
The move has its critics – some in the auto industry believe that suppressing engine output could be dangerous when rapid acceleration is needed, such as moving from an on-ramp to the main lanes on an expressway or trying to avoid a crash in an emergency situation.
However, Toyota has concluded that such a function to suppress engine output is necessary to prevent accidents involving pedestrians and bicycles, and the system will only be installed only for those who want it, the sources said.
The introduction of the new function comes following a spate of high-profile accidents involving elderly people who made mistakes using the gas and brake pedals. In early July, the country’s land, infrastructure, transport and tourism ministry asked Toyota and seven other major domestic automakers to take urgent action regarding sudden acceleration caused by mistakenly pressing the accelerator.
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I guess their Le Mans racer already had this “safety feature”. No wonder they had to wait for their first victory until all other teams dropped out of the competition :)
Great. Should put that in the Innova.
Proton must learn a lot from game changing Toyota. Proton safety technologies are still way behind. This safety feature is very important for Proton cars
Proton shall learn from other safety features for the elderly, invented by Toyota i.e. the build-in walking stick.
Toyota has this kind of tech already here. Its called their snail paced CVT and 4AT. No matter how much you push there is no accelaration.
Ha ha ha . You killed me….
Anti- accelerate? No wonder drive into the drain.
Actually this feature should be fitted in Protons. Cause Proton owners usually got so many children in the car and most of the time the kids are jumping up and down on ayah and ibu, thus high chances of accidentally pressing the accelerator pedal
Ya that’s because ayah shoots live rounds, not like the towkays that need pills to get their pencil thin barreled toy guns lifted and fires only blanks …
With the conclusion in the second last paragraph, in a way Toyota themselves also agree that this tech can be very dangerous to its customers, namely the driver and the passengers.
Dang… that’s our perodua tech laaa..dont steal laa..aha
If everything can be prevented, then there is no such a word ACCIDENT…drivers will be more careless in driving if more n more safety features installed
“which are popular among elderly drivers”
Yes, that’s true. The average age of a Toyota driver is >64