13-year-old boy swipes dad's Mercedes, drives across Europe

Michael Harley — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 19:34:00 EST

Filed under: Etc., Europe, Mercedes-Benz

After an argument with his adoptive parents that resulted in them taking away his mobile phone, an angry 13-year-old boy ran away from his home in Italy and headed straight to Poland to meet his biological sister. But instead of taking the train or hitching a ride, like most on the run, the young man (an accomplished go-kart racer and car enthusiast) grabbed the keys to his father's Mercedes-Benz and jumped behind the wheel for an impromptu road trip.

With less than 200 euros (about $270) in his wallet and a passport in his pocket, the youngster managed to put more than 500 miles between himself and his distraught parents, crossing two international borders in the process, before German police nabbed him just shy of the Polish border. According to reports, the vehicle was tracked - it wasn't his driving that alerted authorities to his location.

Reunited with his mother and father, who traveled to Germany to retrieve both their son and the vehicle, the young man apologized and acknowledged his error. As a result of his actions, social workers will increase checks on the family and we can be sure his parents are now hiding the keys.

13-year-old boy swipes dad's Mercedes, drives across Europe originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 16 Jan 2013 19:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feds find no evidence of faulty electronics in Toyota models

Jeremy Korzeniewski — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 14:29:00 EST

Filed under: Government/Legal, Safety, Toyota

The ongoing saga of unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles has taken another turn today as Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood released a statement indicating that no evidence of electronic problems in runaway Toyotas has been found.

"The jury is back. The verdict is in. There is no electronic-based cause for unintended high-speed acceleration in Toyotas. Period." said LaHood in a prepared statement. This finding comes at the end of a 10-month investigation carried out jointly by The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and NASA that was requested by Congress.

Over 280,000 separate lines of code embedded in the electronics of potentially affected Toyota vehicles were examined by NASA, none of which contained any flaws capable of causing runaway acceleration, says the report.

This isn't to say that the government has found that Toyota is not at fault in any way. LaHood added, "Our conclusion - that Toyota's problems were mechanical, not electrical - come after one of the most exhaustive, thorough and intensive research efforts ever undertaken."

Those mechanical problems, namely sticky accelerator pedals and pedals that got trapped under faulty floor mats, "remain the only known causes for these kind of unsafe unintended acceleration incidents," says NHTSA. It should prove interesting to see how the courts - both of public opinion and of law - react to these findings.

[Source: The Detroit News | Image: Ramin Talaie/Getty]

Feds find no evidence of faulty electronics in Toyota models originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 08 Feb 2011 14:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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