A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an article on BestCashCow that Toyota is entering a death spiral. I continue to think that Toyota's problems are real and are just beginning. Their refusal to address the sudden acceleration issue as an electronics problem - instead opting to satiate customers by moving the pedals around - is doing dramatic damage to the brand from which the company will never recover. To boot, Toyota was, as I predicted, poorly prepared in front of Congress two weeks ago. I drive a Lexus. My next car will be an Infiniti.
Putting the marketing damage aside, I am amazed by the parallels between this case and the Ford Pinto cases in the 1970s which led to the development of product liability tort law in the US. We give large product liability awards in the US in order to stop manufucturers from putting low values on human lives and producing products that may kill people. That gets manufacturers to fix problems rather than than treat them as inconsequential. A couple of large awards will take down Toyota. I am short Toyota stock and long very long-dated Toyota puts.
But this situation two nights ago with James Sikes and his Prius is really bugging me. It seems like the guy is piling on to a news story. He was too prepared to go straight to the media. He called 911 before trying to pull the emergency brake. Sikes, according to published reports, is a 61-year old real estate executive and longtime lottery player who won $55,000 and was selected in 2006 to appear on a California Lottery TV game show. This smells to me like a washed up Californian angling to be a plaintiff in a lawsuit or to be on the Amazing Race 18.
If it happened in Iowa or Kansas maybe I'd believe it, but these days anything coming out of California just seems scripted for Hollywood.
Comments
Anonymous
March 12, 2010
Is it Sikes or Psyches?
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wilson100
March 12, 2010
is it Sikes or Psychs??
What a nut case.......
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Bob J.
March 12, 2010
I'm a little disappointed in Jim....his previous scams were much more sophisticated!! I guess the lure of a live TV audience was too tempting to pass up.
Unfortunately, I was a neighbor of this sad excuse for a human being until his creditors ran him out of town.
This man's past would make Bernie Madoff look like a choir boy!!! The corporate Toyota lawyers are going to eat him alive and it couldn't happen to a nicer guy. I only hope they can prosecute that low-life wife of his also!!
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Jill D.
March 12, 2010
You've done it now Jimmy boy...Did you really think your past wouldn't come to light????
Cheer up...when you get out of jail I'm sure you'll have a future in politics!!
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guest
March 12, 2010
Hear are the most recent incidents taken from county grantor grantee records:
Doc No: 2009-0017064 Record Date: 1/14/2009
Document Type: MECHANICS LIEN
Grantor(s):
SIKES JAMES
Grantee(s):
HUNTLEY HAROLD W
WILLYS CONSTR
*********************************************
Doc No: 2008-0455328 Record Date: 8/25/2008
Document Type: DEFAULT
Grantor(s):
FIVE STAR SERV CORP
SIKES JAMES ALLEN TR
SIKES PATRICIA LYNNE TR
SIKES FAMILY TRUST
Descriptors(s):
DOC 403983 MAY 12 05
***************************************************
Document Details Back To Search Results
Doc No: 2008-0617310 Record Date: 12/2/2008
Document Type: NT TRUSTEE SALE
Grantor(s):
FIVE STAR SERV CORP
SIKES JAMES ALLEN TR
SIKES PATRICIA LYNNE TR
SIKES FAMILY TRUST
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Rosco Tanner
March 12, 2010
This guy's a fake, but let's talk to the larger issue: Everything mechanical has a failure rate. In other words at some point in time there will be failure no matter how carefully something is manufactured..i.e Space Shuttle. The idea is to minimize that failure rate and know how to deal with it when it occurs. If you build 10 million of ANYTHING there will be some failures!!!!
Prius does not have a serious mechanical problem in my opinion, it's more the driver's lack of training!!
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Huck Finn
March 12, 2010
This is not his first rodeo. A search of prior insurance claim shows a significant loss from a home burglary in 2001 from Atwater, CA. Foreclosures, behind on car payments, cheats near death what is next? Toyota, oh what a feeling!
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Fielding Mellish
March 12, 2010
Last year we had two incidents (the boy in the weather balloon & the white house gate crashers) wherein the media described the perpetrators as ââ¬Åreality-show wannabesââ¬Â. There was a time when these people were simply called assholes. The major networks should be ashamed of themselves for enabling these poor misguided people.
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Jeff
March 12, 2010
How would putting your car in neutral EVER cause it to "flip"? THat makes zero sense. And how come every news story I see involving unintended acceleration advises people to slam on the breaks, but they hardly EVER say anything about putting the car in neutral or turning off the ignition? When the Today show talked about this [obviously fraudulent] sikes episode yesterday morning, the only mention of shifting to neutral was made by the 911 operator. Matt Lauer said NOTHING about it. They should be shouting it from the dang rooftops. Maybe they're afraid of being sued or something?
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Carl M
March 12, 2010
Is there any way I can contact a previous blogger D.L. Moore who thinks this guy is for real....I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell!!!!!!
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