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2020 TOYOTA AVALON — FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKING

1 fatalcrash · 1760163 · 2021-07-28

Vehicle

Make
TOYOTA
Model
AVALON
Year
2020
Manufacturer
Toyota Motor Corporation
Component
FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKING

Severity

Deaths
1
Injured
0
Fire
No
Crash
Yes
Police report
Yes
Medical attention
Yes
Vehicle towed
Yes

Narrative

I represent the family of a fatally injured rollaway victim. It is on their behalf I am reporting the circumstances of this incident and to strongly urge that NHTSA update the rollaway requirements specified in Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 114. On August 22, 2020, It is believed that while attempting to retrieve the key fob, the driver inadvertently bumped the gear selector forward into Neutral, releasing the torque to the wheels that had kept it stationary on their sloped driveway. (Unlike shifting out of the Park position, which requires application of the brake pedal and depressing the lock button on the shift selector, the shift selector can be moved from Drive forward into the Neutral position, without a secondary interlocking action.) The drivers wife, who was behind the vehicle. was pinned by the car and dragged under to her death. The position of the transmission gear selector was not documented by any witnesses or first responders when the vehicle eventually came to rest on the opposite side of the road, not is it documented in the extensive data stored within the vehicle. However, the data retrieved from the subject vehicle during a subsequent inspection revealed that the Vehicle Control History (VCH) included a field for “Driver Exited Vehicle When Shift Position Wasn’t P” which showed that at the time of the incident that is exactly what happened. Finally, there is ample evidence to support the need for an upgrade of the rollaway provisions

Source

Authoritative
NHTSA ODI Flat-File Downloads
ODI Number
11426884
Machine
JSON-LD · Markdown