Police stop Toyota in high-speed scare

A Highway Patrol in California helped stop a runaway Toyota Prius car after the car's accelerator became stuck at high speed.

Driver James Sikes phoned police for help after he lost control on a highway.

Police confirmed a patrol car pulled alongside the Prius and officers told Mr Sikes over a loudspeaker to push the brake pedal to the floor and apply the emergency brake.

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In a statement, Toyota said it has dispatched a field technical specialist to San Diego to investigate the incident.

Toyota has recalled 8.5m vehicles worldwide – more than six million in the United States – because of acceleration problems.

The motoring giant is facing dozens of group lawsuits by owners claiming the massive safety recalls have hammered the value of their cars in an action that could cost the company more than 2bn.

The estimate does not include potential payouts for wrongful death and injury cases, which could reach in the tens of millions each. The sheer volume of cases involving US Toyota owners claiming lost value – six million or more – could prove far more costly.

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Such class-action lawsuits "are more scary for Toyota than the cases where people actually got injured," said Tom Baker, a University of Pennsylvania law professor. "A super-big injury case would be $20m (13.8m). But you could have millions of individual car owners who could (each) be owed $1,000. If I were Toyota, I'd be more worried about those cases."

As Toyota continues to deal with the recalls and wavering public confidence in its vehicle safety, its biggest financial fight may be in the courtroom.

A key decision could come at a hearing on March 25 in San Diego, where a panel of federal judges will consider whether to consolidate the mushrooming cases into a single jurisdiction.

Toyota owners suing the company claim their vehicles have dropped in value because of the recalls and that Toyota knew all along about safety problems but concealed them from buyers.