Hey, Spanky: “Breaks is Gone, We’s Free-Wheelin!”—for Your Consideration, the Truthless Tale of the Runaway Toyota and its Hapless Pilot…
When news broke this week about the accelerator sticking on a California man’s Prius, the media reported it as factual, and average people said to one another, “Hey, did you hear about that runaway Toyota?!”
If you’re like me, you don’t take these things at face value. Instead of “Hey, did you hear about that runaway Toyota?!” you may have wondered, “Could that have really happened?” Just like the duality of conversation, most news stories have multiple layers of meaning. “Hey did you hear…” is the first layer in this story, it’s as deep as most people will go. Questioning the truthfulness of the story is the second layer in this case.
For me, at least, there also happens to be a third layer with this story—I’ll tell you what it is at the end.
Before I give you my thoughts on this case, you should check out the three minute Youtube clip above. Watch and listen carefully to the interview snippets with Sikes and make note of anything you think is revealing.
Okay, now that you’ve given the video your Columbo eye, let’s take a look at whether Jim Sikes is shooting us straight. What the reporters say is all fluff… true story or not, they’ve bought it, and are trying to make it as dramatic as possible, so they’re irrelevant in finding the truth. The revealing stuff is always found by watching the direct participants as they tell their story.
At 1:13 the first interview snippet begins. Evaluating his statement would be much easier if the entire interview were shown, but we have some telling points in these clips; in this first piece he is looking in all directions, his thoughts seem to be a little disjointed, and he seems slightly uncomfortable… maybe that’s the understandable discomfort of being interviewed by a news crew.
1:32 — Sikes says he nearly hit a truck twice, “once early in the game”. This is an odd way to refer to the incident: As a game. A deceptive person knows the truth, and it’s ever-present in their mind, even as they speak dishonestly about it. The difficult part for them is to filter out their truthful thoughts… from what they want to release. In every instance, pieces of those thoughts they want to hold back get tangled with what they consciously choose to release. Was it a game to him? Is there some fun in this for him? People always convey what they mean, but you have to listen closely.
1:36 As he references nearly hitting the second truck, Sikes chuckles slightly. Did he think it was funny as it was happening? Does he think it’s funny now? Did it really happen to begin with? Always notice oddly-timed laughter, and consider whether it fits with the subject being discussed.
2:02 The interview resumes… notice the ’goggle eye’ look. He’s gazing down and around much of the time. He doesn’t appear to be confident, and his speech pattern is a bit choppy.
2:14 After saying twice that the floor mat was fine, he chuckles again… in this case it seems to be a hesitation device that people often use when being deceptive. He’s repeating himself, and seem nervous, which often causes ill-timed laughter.
2:22 The interview shifts to Sikes recounting what happened when the trooper was next to him—which is the one part of the whole event we know is factual. Notice the difference in his manner when he tells about this; he looks at a level gaze toward the interviewer and he lacks the searching gaze we’ve seen before—and the goggle eyes. He now seems more comfortable, confident, and his thoughts are coming to him more easily. As he finishes up he makes sure to tells us that the car had “been at 94″.
If you throw away everything else, this one thing is telling, and many wouldn’t even stop to consider it: Sikes is willing to stand in the Toyota parking lot and give an interview. Would the average person want to do this? How about you? Are you ready to hold a news conference tomorrow afternoon?
So now let’s get to the third layer of this story that I alluded to earlier. Hasn’t this 61 year old man developed enough experience, wisdom, and savvy to handle himself when the unknown presents itself?
These days there’s always somebody to call for help, and many of us have lost the ability to take charge and take care of business for ourselves. Once upon a time, we had to be ingenious enough to think on our own… or we didn’t survive. Now that life is more comfortable than ever, it seems the cave-man in each of us is dying away.
So let’s accept that Sikes’ accelerator was actually stuck; why did he need help to get the car stopped? Hardly a muscle car, the Prius is one of the weakest rides on the road. The brakes were capable of slowing it down, and absent that he could have just put the transmission in neutral, turned off the ignition, and coasted to a stop.
Surely a guy who wears a Corvette Owners Club jacket can handle himself when his lawn mower gets away from him.
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So what do you think? Do you believe Jim Sikes? Did you find something I missed? Let me know your thoughts, leave a comment…
-jef
Jef, is there such a thing as ‘Goggle Eyes”? Is that something that investigators look for? He does it a lot in certain parts?
Goggle Eyes? I made that name up.
If I’ve ever seen it before I haven’t noticed it. It does seem associated with the times when he’s looking down and around, and searching.
Thanks Rich
Jef, I like your analysis of these kinds of current affair statements, puts things in context!
You referenced the brevity or editing of the clips. Doesn’t that work against you in trying to figure out the real deal with somebody like this?
Thanks, Jen.
The clips work against us, true. So we’re down to comparing parts of his interview… with parts of his interview! Always watch for contrast, noticed when a person’s look or speech shifts/changes, and see if what it’s linked to.
ALSO - Part of our handicap (and it’s unfair to Sikes) is that we don’t know what his characteristics are under ‘normal’ circumstances. The ideal way is to see how a person when there is no stress, etc, and then watch for aberrances (sp?)… so again, it’s all about contrast.
So this guy is 61, just the age he could have been in Vietnam. Any chance this guy was on a recon team hunting VC in the jungle for days a time? No.
He’s on the phone iwth a 23 yr old girl to help him get his Prius under control. Did he ever have any cave man in him to begin with?
If this had legitimately happened, and this guy had any sense of how inept he was, he wouldn’t get up and talk about it he would hide his face.
I believe he is being deceptive as well. I noticed that he shrugged with one shoulder at the 2:11 mark. Was he not confident in what he was saying when he stated, “I thought it (the pedal) was stuck”?
I also might be reading into it wrong, but he has a lot of left/right head movement during the part of the story he could have been making up. He then has a lot of up/down head movement during the part of the story we know to be true. Now that could just be because he was using words to describe what the pedal “Wasn’t” doing and what “wasn’t” wrong with the mat, but nonetheless it caught my eye.
Thanks for pointing out some of the other points Jeff. I didn’t even consider that he said “the game” the first time I watched it. And your last point about him needing help to bring the car to a stop, excellent point!
You make a great point with the head movements. It’s always interesting to see a
person shake their head ‘no’ when making a statement of supposed agreement
or truth… and he did lack confidence through much of the interview snippets. The success
of a deceptive person, ironically, is their display of confidence. The shoulder shrug,
the goggle eyes, it’s all very weak… and weakness isn’t usually believed.
Thanks for your thoughts on this, Calvin, well done.
-jef
Wow. If I did not read your post and saw just the video, I would have believed Sikes. Why? It’s sensationalized, that’s why.
Your comments brought to mind a near death experience I had on the 101, North bound. I was somewhere in Simi Valley when I lost control of my brother’s sports car. This was ten years ago, and his car was maybe 10 yrs old or older, at that time, and it was a stick shift. When I knew I lost control, I started praying my Our Fathers and Hail Mary’s. I did not have the time to look at my speedometer because if I dared to even check my speed, that was going to kill me faster. My goal was to gain control of the car again. I swerved left and right, I was afraid of hitting the cars next to me, in the 5 lane freeway, and no, i did not think of calling 911 because i needed both my hands. I might have swerved left and right 5 times, and then it dawned on me to downshift, and i did, and the car slowed down, I re-gained control of the wheel, finally kept the car on one lane, and I was shaken. And I kept on driving all the way to Oxnard. I was afraid that if I stopped on the side of the road to recover, I might not have recovered at all. I seriously thought I was going to die. Yes it shook me up - I never said a word to anyone. Maybe I told my brother.
If I were in Sikes’ shoes and that happened to me in the Prius, I would be very angry at Toyota and instead of sensationalizing and acting in front of the cameras, I would be threatening Toyota. You will certainly see a lot of emotion from me. I would be yelling at the news and camera crew. Why would this guy wear his Corvette jacket in front of the cameras, the day after? What for? Credibility? Dude if you can control a Corvette you will know what to do with that Prius and you won’t have to call 911.
I learned to drive with a stick shift. Let’s just say that 2 years out of my 20 years of driving was with a stick and the rest was on an auto. I still figured out how to slow down my brother’s car. So Sikes, give me your Corvette. I can handle it.
Hey Jef, do you think any police officer will think the same way as you while they interviewed Sikes? You were not at the scene, you are making comments from the video. What do you think the officers thought while they were talking to Sikes? Know what I mean? And the day after, yes of course Sikes can add / manufacture a story the day after. How different was his version the day of and after?
***Jeannie
Let me just say, for the record, that i was about half his age when I was able to re-gain control of the car, without the help of 911. There. And I’m not local. K? Give me your Corvette.
Wait wait wait. He’s 61. Senior citizens get benefits.
Hats off, Jeannie, you took care of business, your Inner Caveman is alive!
Amazing! You’ve have actually been in the shoes that Sikes claims to have filled… and you’ve hit on things
that I didn’t consider, things that could only come from someone who’s really been there… namely, that you
have no idea what your speed was (not important–your focus was on keeping the car under control), while Sikes has a specific number and wants us all to know it.
As for the cops, great question…. if I had to bet, they had their suspicions pretty quick. You have to remember that while the average person tends to believe first and question only when there’s good reason, cops don’t subscribe to this Truth Bias, they believe NOTHING.
I read a quote from a CHP officer a day or two after, he basically said ‘there’s no crime here, so our job is done.’
Given the magnitude and naturre of this thing, I think they’re content leaving it to the NHTSA and Toyota to hash out.
I just Googled “runaway toyota prius” and got this update, I’m sure there’s much stuff more current than this, but you get the idea… this is roundly considered a hoax now. When his lawyer said there were no plans to sue Toyota, which came out within days, doesn’t that say it all?
http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2010/03/13/pattern-wear-runaway-prius-brakes-raises-questions/
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Great Article!
I like your content…anyone and everyone can benefit from reading something like this…I’ve always been interested in figuring out if people were telling the truth when I speak with them, because I do a lot of interviews working in Human Resources…very similar to interrogations! lol
Thanks Again,
Rup
hey Rup, nice to know you like my ’stuff’, thanks! Interviews and interrogations are so close in nature as to be indistinguishable sometimes! You’re looking for facts, truth, information, right? The techniques I used as a cop can be easily re-tuned to handle what you’re doing… which is the whole point behind my book, of course.
Anyway, thanks again for your kind words, more to come… enjoy.
-jef