Thanks to William Briggs for linking to this Forbes article debunking the story of the guy with the runaway Toyota Prius. I always wondered what kind of "sudden acceleration" would leave the guy time to call 911 on his cell phone and ask for help, while doing nothing else to stop his car. It turns out that he:

• did not attempt to put the car in neutral
  
• did not attempt to switch the car off
  
• was afraid to push too hard on the brakes
  
• was not, in fact, slowed by contact with the highway patrol car (coached by the officers, he managed to turn off the ignition and stop the car)
  
• gave an implausible story about how he tried and failed to pull up the accelerator pedal

Yet, in all the recent runaway-Toyota hysteria, no one from the rest of the mainstream media -- yes, I count Forbes as mainstream -- thought to ask any of these questions. They preferred to breathlessly run video of the highway patrol getting in front of the car.

They also neglected to scrutinize the "victim":


None of this is proof that the incident was a hoax. But it certainly deserves more scrutiny. And I'll bet you've heard none of this on CNN.*

* Update: apologies to CNN -- they do have a web article casting some doubt on the story, though they make it sound like a legal gambit by Toyota: "Toyota takes aim at California runaway Prius story".