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For three days, James Sikes held America's highest honor: victim. The nation had been transfixed by his almost half-hour-long 94-mph horror ride in his runaway Toyota Prius. He burned his brakes right down to the metal, unable to even slow the vehicle. Only his prescience in calling 911, followed by a highway patrol officer providing assistance, saved his life.
Then my article "Toyota Hybrid Horror Hoax" at Forbes.com brought it crashing down. But lest you get false impressions from that title, the real hoaxter wasn't Jim Sikes, but the media. Red flags about his story were popping up from the start. Yet the entire Fourth Estate systematically ignored them. Here were some of the biggest.
1. After Sikes stopped, the assisting officer observed that the accelerator was in the proper position. Why would stopping make it pop back up? It was probably gremlins; still, somebody should have asked Sikes about it. Nobody did.
2. Sikes repeatedly says he stood on the brakes but couldn't even slow the vehicle. Yet Car and Driver had recently tested three cars at full throttle at 100 mph and brought them all to a full stop, including a 540-horsepower Mustang. The 2008 Prius only has 110 anemic ponies under the hood. (After my story broke, a leaked congressional memo revealed that tests on Sikes' car showed that, as they were designed to do, when the brakes on Sikes' car were applied, the engine automatically slowed.)
3. You can listen on the Web as the 911 dispatcher repeatedly begs Sikes to either stop the engine with the ignition button or put the car into neutral. Sikes says he was afraid to try them, giving various contradictory or absurd reasons. Regarding his refusal to shift into neutral, one of the many reasons was, as he told CNN: "I was afraid to try to (reach) over there and put it in neutral. I was holding onto the steering wheel with both hands." Yet:
• We know Sikes spent most of the ride with a cell phone in his hand.
• Sikes claimed at a press conference that he reached under the dash to try to physically pull up the floored accelerator. With my average-length arms, I can barely touch the pedal of a 2008 Prius in the full up position. Quite possibly Sikes also cannot reach, but at a press conference with his car behind him, nobody asked him to repeat the motion. In any case, it's incredibly awkward at 94 mph for somebody who insisted he couldn't take his hands off the wheel.
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Posted By: gregory the black(65) on 3/23/2010 | 11:12 PM ET
Along with everything else that he has coming to him, I hope he gets a ticket for talking on his cellphone while driving.
Posted By: jpdwn(130) on 3/23/2010 | 9:25 PM ET
One cable news station (we know which one) expressed skepticism upon the first reporting of the story. That's why I limit my news watching to that cable station and IBD. I highly recommend that.
Posted By: concerned(910) on 3/23/2010 | 7:03 PM ET
Give Sikes and the MSM a 'brake'! They were only trying to help Big Brother Motors sell some US steel.
Posted By: EbPaceNYC(50) on 3/23/2010 | 6:53 PM ET
The other pox in this country: ppl looking for the big payday via lawsuits, and the lawyers that enable this mentality. Toyota should sue both Sikes (and all other hoaxsters) and his lechorous lawyer(s). BS like this harms legitimate gripes from getting their fair shake in court. It's disgusting and pathetic.
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