Today's Washington Post has a frightening lead story about the Toyota fiasco. It turns out that back in 2007, federal regulators investigated reports that some Toyotas were speeding up out of nowhere. However, if I'm reading this right, both Toyota and the feds downplayed the possible danger.
During a little-noticed 2007 inquiry, investigators found that at least three of every 100 Lexus ES 350 owners in Ohio reported experiencing unintended acceleration, an unacceptably high percentage given the potentially fatal consequences, industry experts said.
Usually, complaints about Toyotas speeding up out of nowhere didn't get beyond the inquiry stage. However, after a total of 57 complaints to both the NHTSA and Toyota, the NHTSA opened a formal probe. It found that the accelerator could get stuck in the floor mats. Despite the high number of owners reporting this problem (one former NHTSA official says anything above one percent should raise a red flag) the government concluded that the problem only affected a small number of cars.
One part of the report, however, should have raised another red flag with both Toyota and the NHTSA. As part of the probe, the NHTSA sent out surveys to over 1,900 Lexus owners in Ohio. Of the 59 who reported problems with their cars speeding up out of nowhere, 24 of them--or almost half--said they didn't have the floor mats. That should have made Toyota dig further. It makes one wonder--how long had the accelerator pedals been sticking? I'm no auto safety expert, but it stands to reason that had Toyota caught it sooner, we wouldn't be seeing the massive plant closures and sales halts we're seeing now.
Update: Wiscmass mentioned in the comments that 3 percent of any car isn't exactly a "small number of cars." For instance, if 3 percent of all the cars on the road today had acceleration problems, that would come to 3.75 million cars--enough to be front-page news anywhere. And according to Toyota's Website, there are 2.2 million Toyotas on the road now. Three percent of that would come to almost 220,00066,000 cars. Yep, that's just a "small number of cars."
Digg it up!