I considered Toyota to be the best manufacturer of automobiles in the world, bar none. I own a Mercedes Benz, a Subaru, a Lincoln and a Solara.

Braking before bumps in the road at the speed limit disengages the brakes upon traveling over the bumps. They don't kick in for several seconds after the bumps are cleared. This happens each and every time where bumps are encountered.

To reduce this dangerous situation in which the brakes fail, we try to avoid any known bumpy areas.On average twice a year we encounter bumpy conditions not present on our previous trips on that road.

It is not only disconcerting, scary and unnecessary, it is very dangerous and more innocent people will die due to this common fault in the Prius. I vow this: Until Toyota addresses and fixes this widespread dangerous model flaw, I will not cease to do everything I can to make others aware of Toyota's malicious negligence. I will do so to protect my daughter and others from serious injury and/or death. Toyota should be ashamed.

I wish it were not so.

brakes failed after bump,rough road surface,manhole cover

I was driving my 2009 Prius on a dry, fall day, when I slowly drove up behind a row of cars that were waiting for the stoplight to change . As I drove up behind the last car in the waiting row of cars, the person in the Jeep ahead of me suddenly braked hard, and although I was driving slowly and of course, braked hard to avoid hitting the Jeep, the brakes on my car failed. And, as I felt a slight and unexplained acceleration, my car rolled into the Jeep, which hit the car in front, which hit the next car - a four-car pile-up occurred! My car was "totaled" and had to be taken away on a flat-bed truck, as was the Jeep in front of me. The third car that was damaged had minor damage and could drive away. The fourth car was a large SUV that had a hardly-noticeable scratch on its bumper. No one was injured, no airbags were deployed in any of the four cars, and in fact, a sleeping baby in the SUV did not even wake up, so clearly this accident was not caused by speed or a strong impact!

When I first got the car, in the fall of 2008, I soon complained to the Toyota service head that the brakes sometimes didn't work - on rough road surfaces, potholes, manhole covers, etc. He said I just needed to get used to the ABS brakes, but I told him that I had driven a Volvo with ABS brakes for the previous 13 years, and had never experienced the brakes failing. He would not even listen to me, and walked away, as I waas talking to him. So, for all those years (2008 - 2015) that I drove the Prius, I had often experienced the brakes failing, right after driving over rough road surfaces, a pothole, etc.

Exactly in the road surface, where I had to brake, on the day of the accident there were, two raised rows of bricks embedded in the road surface on either side of a crosswalk, to warn drivers to slow down, to watch for pedestrians. For all the years that I drove the Prius, the brakes had failed in just this kind of circumstance, but fortunately, before this, there had never been another car right in front of mine. This time, my brakes failed and caused a 4-car collision. It was not my fault, in any way, but the insurance company is blaming me.