on August 28th 2009 Mark sailor was going 120 M an hour in a loner car from a Toyota dealership in the car with him was his wife daughter and brother-in-law now this brother-in-law called 911 while in the car and I have to warn you what you're about to hear is horrific 911 emergency what are you reporting I'm sorry Stu going 120 Mission G Mark was trying to break but the car wasn't slowing down we're we're in trouble we can't there's no breakway half mile the freeway was ending and they were approaching an intersection with stopped Vehicles we're approaching intersection we're approaching intersection hold on shoot hello to avoid hitting other vehicles Mark drove the car off into a ravine all four passengers were instantly killed the recording of the 911 call went viral and everyone especially the relatives of the family blame Toyota the 911 call lasted just 17 seconds accor stuck the mounting troubles at Toyota Toyota has a problem and pretty soon more and more reports came in thousands of complaints from consumers that report very consistent types of problems across a number of years makes in models the carp just lurched forward and hit the cement wall in front of us over the next 5 years an estimated 90 people died in Toyota vehicles put simply Toyota's conduct was shameful it showed a blatant disregard for systems and laws designed to look after the safety of consumers since everyone blamed Toyota the company ended up recalling 10 million vehicles in Just 2 years they paid a $1.2 billion fine to the US government and spent spent another 1.1 billion on a class action lawsuit but what exactly went wrong in the mark sailor incident and was this really Toyota's fault initially the incident was blamed on floor mats and for good reason soon after the mark sailor incident it was discovered that the same loner car he was driving had been reported as having a loose floor mat that caused an unintended acceleration so Toyota conducted a massive recall and this should have solved the problem for all of these mysterious accelerations but it didn't floor mats turned out to be just a small piece of the puzzle Malcolm Gladwell who was a very well-known and well-respected journalist did an entire podcast episode on this Mark sailor incident and he strongly argues a point that is pretty controversial but if your car is suddenly and mysteriously accelerating all you have to do is step on the brakes because brakes beat engines he put this to to the test by flooring the gas pedal in a car and slamming on the brakes while it was still floored and the car stopped Car and Driver did the same experiment except with a powerful sports car and again the brakes ended up overpowering the engine and stopping the vehicle so if Gladwell is right if brakes will always beat an engine then why couldn't Mark sailor stop his car that day I know this is going to sound absurd but the only logical explanation would be that Mark sailor never put his foot on the brake just go with me on this for a minute when you drive your personal car you become used to the pedals in that specific car some call this muscle memory your mind sort of goes into autopilot well the vast majority of these mysterious acceleration cases happened when a driver was put in an unfamiliar vehicle like Mark sailor driving a loner people get into an unfamiliar vehicle without adjusting properly and when they put their foot down to press the brake they sometimes unintentionally press the gas pedal instead and there is research to back this up in 2011 the nhtsa along with NASA released a report on all of these mysterious acceleration cases they analyzed the black boxes in these cars a device that stores information before during and after an accident and what they found in most of these cases is that the brake pedal hadn't even been touched these drivers were unintentionally pressing the gas pedal the entire time this is called pedal error and it's a lot more common than you might think so now we know what happened to Mark sailor right case closed well not exactly a few months after the Sailor incident new details came to light suggesting that he was in fact pressing the brakes and that something else was going on it turns out that Malcolm Gladwell overlooked a very very important piece of this puzzle power assisted brakes these brakes are designed to draw power from the engine but they have a fatal flaw in one certain scenario Consumer Reports took a Toyota car equipped with power assisted brakes and performed the same test as Gladwell they kept the car floored pressed the brakes and the car eventually slowed down but they didn't stop there they did the same test again and changed one thing let's see what happens if you lift your foot off the brake in this situation again wide open throttle 60 MPH hitting the brakes car's slowing down I'm going to lift off my brakes just once and then back down I've lost power assist I cannot slow this vehicle down I'm pushing all my might I'm going 40 say I lift off my brake again and to pump them now I'm going 60 cannot slow down the vehicle lift off again 80 mph I'm powerless to slow this vehicle down Mark sailor wasn't the victim of pedal error he was the victim of a loose floor mat and power assisted Brakes in the real world people will actually lift the foot off the brake perhaps to pump the brakes to get more power perhaps they're trying to fiddle with a floor mat but the point is is when you lift your foot off the brake even one time you lose your power assistance and it becomes almost impossible to stop the video vle