On March 8, 2010 an alarming story emerged from San Diego, California, when the driver of a 2008 Toyota Prius claimed that his accelerator had stuck on Interstate 8.
The man, Jim Sikes, claimed that when he accelerated to pass another vehicle, the gas pedal stuck and despite pushing on the brake, the car reached speeds over 90 mph on the highway. It took a California Highway Patrolman to help bring Sike’s car to a stop.
In the midst of Toyota’s massive recalls, this event only added more skepticism regarding the reliability and safety of Toyota’s vehicles.
However, in a memo released to the public yesterday, technicians from Toyota as well as the National Traffic Safety Administration stated that they could not re-create the same effect that happened last Monday morning to Sikes. These results raise a substancial amount of questions about Sikes’ credibility, especially when reports surfaced regarding his $700,000 debt he had in 2008.
Is Jim Sikes lying? Could he be doing it just for money and 15 minutes of fame?
Here is footage of Sikes after the incident, before allegations of a hoax arose…do you see anything unusual?
Some of his words and facial expressions do appear odd – the phrase “early in the game” seems a particularly odd choice … unless he’s a coach, or this was a “game” – and some of his facial expressions look feigned – perhaps most importantly, he rarely looks people in the eyes – his gaze is very jumpy and diverted – but to heck with we amateurs – what do you see?
Looks like duping delight to me.
I agree with john. Jim Sikes seems to be a shifty and untrustworthy person or at least at the time of the incident.
This guy is sketchy from what I see. He has 2 emblematic slips of his left shoulder around 2:10 and 2:20 when commenting on the gas petal. Other than that he seemed to be telling the truth when recalling what the highway patrol guided him to do. I couldn’t tell if he was just excited but he had some fear expressions in there frequently. Maybe he had scary memories about his Toyota or he was scared about telling his “story”
I noticed around 2:13 – 2:14 when he’s saying “nothing wrong with my mat” the look of contempt. Towards who or what…?
I agree with the previous posters, when you pause the video and screen back you can catch some truly crazy wide-eyed expressions – or fear as someone else pointed out..
The most obvious thing that sticks out was when he said there was nothing wrong with his mat: he seemed really unconvinced, gave out a little laugh, and his speech pattern seemed really different. He does seem to be expressing the fear of the whole account, which I’d tend to believe.
I noticed around 2:13 – 2:14 when he’s saying “nothing wrong with my mat” the look of contempt. Towards who or what…?
I agree with the previous posters, when you pause the video and screen back you can catch some truly crazy wide-eyed expressions – or fear as someone else pointed out..
This guy is sketchy from what I see. He has 2 emblematic slips of his left shoulder around 2:10 and 2:20 when commenting on the gas petal. Other than that he seemed to be telling the truth when recalling what the highway patrol guided him to do. I couldn’t tell if he was just excited but he had some fear expressions in there frequently. Maybe he had scary memories about his Toyota or he was scared about telling his “story”