Toyota: A Poll

Great Debates
21

It’s highly unlikely there is anything criminal that happened, to be perfectly honest.

Something to keep in mind is there have been tens of thousands of cases of sudden, uncontrollable acceleration. Ford actually leads the United States auto market in number of claims made by drivers to the NHTSA.

Audi had its U.S. sales destroyed in the late 1980s because of widespread news reports that its cars accelerated uncontrollably. After more than two decades no on has ever really linked those cases to anything concrete, and many experts think that a huge majority of those cases were simple driver error that became a runaway panic because of news coverage.

The more level headed people right now are probably aware that of the 2500+ reports of sudden acceleration probably the lion’s share are a result of driver error. The terrifying cases in which cars reach over 100 miles per hour and the driver can’t do anything at all to stop it are probably less than 1% of the total for cases of sudden acceleration.

Sudden acceleration is a known problem, engineers at automakers have been investigating claims of it since at least the 1980s; and they’ve done so on a regular basis. Unfortunately since the vast majority of driver’s claims can never be reproduced in testing, it makes it virtually impossible to know what happened. Without knowing a definitive fix, companies like Toyota, Ford, General Motors and et cetera are supposed to do…what? Stop selling their product because a minuscule number of their customers are reporting a problem that by and large they can’t reproduce in testing?

I’m not saying Toyota doesn’t have a problem, I’m not saying there isn’t the potential for a serious software flaw in the electronic acceleration mechanism. I’m not defending Toyota’s response to this. I’m not defending Toyota’s handling of the information prior to this becoming a big public thing with a big public recall.

All I’m saying is, it’s a super-small percentage of Toyota’s cars.

From 2004-2009 the NHTSA received 2500 reports about unintended sudden acceleration in Toyota cars (and 2900 in Ford vehicles); look at how many millions of cars Toyota and Ford sold in the United States during those 5 years.

I think if Toyota knew there was a problem, knew its cause and how to fix it, then didn’t do it, there might be someone in the company who could theoretically face criminal liability.

However, even if that could be shown we’ll never see Akio Toyoda in a criminal court, nor should we. The number one biggest reason why is because the public wants and needs automobiles. Automobiles are large pieces of machinery that are incredibly dangerous, probably one of the more dangerous things people come into contact with on a regular basis. That being said, when you look at it on a macro level driving a car is still extremely safe. The overwhelming statistical odds are that you’ll never be killed or seriously injured driving a car during your lifetime. (And that is true even though car travel is more deadly per mile traveled than most other major forms of transportation of which I’m aware.) Since we, as a society have accepted that cars are dangerous and we still want them, it’s unreasonable to put someone on trial when it is shown that a car they sold has a very small percent chance of killing you. All cars have this small percent chance.

22

I saw a story on line about a guy who rear ended another car and killed a couple people. In trial he claimed that the accelerator stuck and he could not stop. Toyota testified that the car was perfect. The judge sentenced him to 8 years. Now they are talking about a new trial. He told them but they did not listen.

23

Cite, please.

24

Excellent post, Martin Hyde.

25

Perhaps this is the cite.

26
27

Except that

28

Yes, because it is so easy to tell the difference when you have only been driving for a year and are headed toward a terrible crash with your child and pregnant wife in the car. He testified that he kept his foot on the brake. We now have a credible reason why his car may have accelerated without his putting his foot on the accelerator.

Even as an experienced driver, I sometimes misinterpret what is actually happening. Once, in a snow storm, in a terrible messy, slushy parking lot, I had my foot on the brake as I prepared to back up, and to my horror, it seemed like my car was lunging forward. I pressed even harder on the break and frantically tried to figure out what else I could do, in a second, I saw that the cars on either side of me were backing up in unison. Have you ever been sitting still and the car next to you moved and for a split second it seemed like your car was moving? I don’t think it is all that unreasonable for a motorist to say that their brakes did not work when they fail to stop their car.

29

I have a recollection of there being a support group trying to crank up a thing they called Sudden Unexplained Acceleration Syndrome some years back (maybe 15-20?)

This was at a time when people had a bit of Nader/technophobia fatigue, and so perhaps for that reason the thing didn’t gain traction.

As I recall, people were claiming with great emotional sincerity and intensity that they would put their foot on the brake, and without warning the car would suddenly accelerate into a nearby wall/car/whatever.

This was before modern electronics-intensive cars.

The simple answer was that there was no physical way the application of the brake could force the car to accelerate. What happened was that people put their foot on the accelerator by mistake, became disoriented, crashed before they realised what had really happened, and then didn’t like to look foolish.

They tried to get the sort of campaign going that has been ramped up here, but failed.
None of that means that there isn’t a possibility of it happening now, but it provides a background data point of how often people claim that a car just accelerated unexpectedly and baselessly blame the car.

It’s a bit like people claiming the gun “just went off”.
This sort of thing has the potential to start those damaging litigation frenzies that become unstoppable monsters. Most of these cases will be driver error, but in the absence of highly unusual circumstances like the people who called 911, it becomes impossible to distinguish between genuine cases of vehicle fault and driver error cases, even though the majority will be driver error.

30

Seems like a bit of a witch hunt to me. I can remember the exploding Crown Vics in rear end collisions and the Chev trucks with the fuel tanks mounted outside of the frame on the side that exploded on side impacts just name two.

31

Define small percentage. Actually Toyota got notice in 2003. They denied it was a problem and covered it up. Documents have come out showing they figured denying would save them millions of dollars. As always the crime is not having a car with a problem. The crime is lying and covering up.

32

He testified that the brakes didn’t work at all. It doesn’t matter how badly the accelerator is stuck, when working brakes are fully applied in such a situation, either the car will slow down, or the brakes will break(or at least show damage when inspected). The car didn’t slow and the brakes showed no such damage.

33

I was watching Toyoda and his company president testify. They kept going back to the mats as a proven problem. Then they said part of the fix was to take 1.5 inches off the brake pedal. How would that fix it getting stuck. Seems a longer pedal would put it above the mats.
I don’t buy the mat story anyway.
It is clear they had an electronic/ computer problem and made a financial decision not to recall and fix it. I don’t know if they actually had a fix or if they determined it was too expensive. But money was a huge factor in their decision. It does outweigh safety in business.

34

Why do you think these are the only possibilities?

If I apply my brakes at speed X for Y time, then afterward they will show wear equivalent to being applied at speed X for Y time. How can you infer anything else?

35

You’ve got to believe that technicians other than those Toyota-owned have been going over the systems with a fine tooth comb, but I haven’t heard of anyone finding any major computer and/or electrical problems yet.

36

They released a software fix to give the brakes an override over the accelerator which was not there previously. There is a detailed explanation of their control systems in a post in the Toyota GQ thread.

37

If your vehicle is accelerating out of control and you slam on the brakes as hard and as fast as you can at the same time, what do you suppose would happen to the vehicle in terms of speed and direction. Also(if you believe his story), I doubt very much that he waited until the car reached top speed before he applied the brakes, so why wasn’t there any slowdown when the car hit 30 or 40 or 50? Slamming on the brakes at that speed should have shown a noticeable change in speed and/or direction.

38

There are many possibilities/answers to the questions you just posed, but lets put those aside for a second.

Can you answer my question about why you think the brakes would not merely show wear equivalent to being applied at speed X for Y time?

Keep in mind how long you use your brakes and at what speeds before you need to have the pads replaced.

39

But it isn’t just brakes being applied at speed X for Y time, because the usual scenario for this computation is that acceleration is discontinued before the brakes are applied. There is additional strain on the brakes if the acceleration is continued at the same time.

40

Brake effectiveness diminishes with heat. If you smoke the brakes you will find that they will not work at all, let alone on a car with a stuck throttle. This particular phenomenon is known as brake fade.