LA Times: Toyota Unintended Acceleration Death Toll Tops 100

The answer is no! If it could be done, it would be easy to have proven that at least one incident was due to electronics. If you want to believe Ralph Nader, go ahead. I don't, even if I like his politics.

Yes, there are always people willing to believe in conspiracy theories and product liability lawyers (which is probably why we have them).

 

Unintended acceleration is an industry wide issue. Statistic shows driver age over 50 years old reported 2x to 3x higher than other age groups. Do you believe other car manufacturers are hiding like Toyota?

The mistake I referred to was pre-Toyoda / pre-LaHood time. In my opinion, they both screwed up. They did not investigate seriously enough and report to the public clearly. At least I do not know the details of their findings back then. Why did NHTSA brush off the owner reports? Did they find them to be driver errors?

Both Toyoda and LaHood took responsibilities for their predecessors. The media and government choose to pick on and beat up Toyota.

 

Total employment for vehicle safety in NHTSA is 339. That includes defects in cars, trucks, semis etc and research. It really isn't that many people considering how many kinds of vehicles travel our highways and streets.

Side note: According NHTSA's administrator: NHTSA will also continue to implement the agency‘s plan to address risk associated with quieter cars for blind pedestrians, identify possible countermeasures, and evaluate their potential effectiveness
and acceptability. "Bell the hybrid" is coming. And EVs. Probably should include some BMWs and other very quiet ICE only cars, but it won't. War on hybrids is war on Toyota. Duh!!

 

This was linked off a news page pointed to in a completely unrelated
thread:
CARLSBAD: Minivan smashes into closed hair salon
.
_H*

 

VW and BMW have had high numbers of reported unintended acceleration recently but have brake override so far fewer accidents and fatalities. NTHSA is investigating VW. Ford has the second highest number of deaths alleged to be unintended acceleration at 20. IMHO they may need brake override also.

We are on the same page here. In 2004 according to court testimony NHTSA and Toyota decided not to look at the cases long enough for the brakes to be applied. They were not investigated just assumed to be driver error. By 2007 NHTSA did not believe the high numbers were driver error, but could not conclude problems with the cars. They tried to get Toyota to add brake override, but Toyota refused. Toyota would have saved a lot of money if the NHTSA had done their jobs better.

Those are things that the media and government do, I can't stop it so I don't complain. I don't really think it is worse than they did to ford with the explorer. There is a lot of misinformation and showboating going on. If Toyoda does what he says he wants to do I'm satisfied. I just don't like the blame the driver first attitude on this site. I would prefer that all the cases are found to be driver error. We know at least some of them aren't.

 

What are they? Please provide more details.

 

As I said in the first post. Toyota has said the investigated incidence where brakes were applied were caused by floor mats.

 

Please don't take this as criticism of your posting as I think the real fault lies in the inadequate LA Times article, the source:

Did you notice the time interval for these 102 deaths was not part of the LA Times article? The LA Times mentioned two specific fatalities:

• "2009" - Saylor's loaner Lexus
• "Dec. 1, 2006" - Solara

We know the floor mat and CTS accelerator defects have been identified and Toyota is fixing them. But if we use just the total annual deaths between 2006 and 2009, we're looking at ~120,000 (~40,000/year, three years). If as I suspect, the LA Times went back to the introduction of electronic accelerators in Toyota vehicles, the total number of fatalities runs about three times that or nearly 400,000 deaths. It is hard to spot 102 deaths as a pattern or trend in the gross fatality rate and even the LA Times observed that half of the 102 deaths were reported in just the past couple of months.

This trend might have been identified if vehicle specific rates were calculated but then another problem occurs, finding a statistically valid number of incidents. This is complicated by the abysmally poor, web interface to the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS.)

There was a book written a number of years ago, INNUMERACY - MATHEMATICAL ILLITERACY AND ITS CONSEQUENCES, about how our general lack of math knowledge leads to false claims. But the subject of math ignorance dates back to Mark Twain who once said:

Twain may have misattributed the original quote.

In the most recent NHTSA hearing, the new director supported the administration's request to increase their staff to include addressing this type of analysis. I was amused to see Congressmen trying to trip him up to say, "Could you use more?" Given the poor quality work the previous NHTSA administrators produced, we can only hope that the quality of the NHTSA goes up.

Bob Wilson

 

Let's try a new headline: Person joins Prius Chat to drum up traffic on his website.

Let's examine the facts:

Orig Poster (OP):
Doesn't own a Prius.
Join date is March 2010.
Profile notes the Owner/Founder of website called TireKicker.
Post #1 links to OP's website.
Thread title does not correspond to LA Times article title.

My un-scientific analysis:
Looks to be a troll trying to drum up hits for a website. YMMV

 

Ok... so we have 3 different causes.

1) Driver
2) Floor mat
3) Sticky accelerator pedal

Toyota is addressing #1 with brake override in all of their cars. #2 by replacing with new floor mat. #3 by fixing the pedal or replacing it at owner's request.

What is Ford, GM and other manufacturers doing now about their unintended acceleration?

You were saying there are more to it. "It just seems the numbers of crashes with owners saying the floor mats were fine, makes me think there are other things also". What are those other things? Should Ford (2nd on the list) be looking for them as well?

The media role with Ford Explorer was just, because NHTSA did everything right. With the Toyota's case, NHTSA failed to do its job. Many people see this a David vs. Goliath. I see David being Toyota and Goliath being the US government. The media portrayed David being a victim (driver) vs. Toyota Goliath.

 

The mantra of the last administration was voluntary compliance. OSHA investigators were chastised for writing too many citations and too investigators and made them into voluntary compliance coordinators. Wage and Hour investigators were reprimanded for being too aggressive in enforcement. A Wage and Hour regional administrator made a deal with Walmart to give them 72 hours notice before making "unscheduled" investigations as required by law (after finding dozens of violations).

NHTSA may not have had the same philosophy as Bush's Labor Dept, but I would be surprised. Unfortunately, deregulation isn't always as business-friendly as it sounds.

 

The story as posted originally in the LA Times, is just a teeny blurb:

And here's why, IMO. If the blog site quoted by the OP would have read the original note in the LA times, it'd likely be sumerized in the following manner:

" ... Sudden Unintended acceleration MAY be the cause of 100 deaths ... deaths that happen every single day on U.S. highways ... and doing the math, over a half dozen years, that would mean 1 out of 6 fatal accidents was a toyota ... which is not too terribly far off the ratio of Toyotas to other cars."

Oh wait ... there's no drama spin saying it that way. Never mind.


.

 

Thanks for correcting me about #1.

You were fanning the fire the media f-bombed on Toyota, along side with a1a1a1. I did not see you fan the brake recall of Ford Fusion hybrid. FFH brakes went into fail-safe mode and a restart of the car was needed. This was unacceptable for the car with "North American Car of the year 2010" title.

 

I don't think the media need help from me. I even declined an interview with NHK about the brake problems. But think what you will.

I didn't comment on the FFH brake fail safe because, a) I didn't see the thread, and b) I don't and no one in my family owns a ford. I have a Prius, my brother has a TCH, and father an avalon so I am personally involved with toyotas. Don't read too much into it.

I only commented here when there was a post that the incidence are 100% driver error. For those only looking at the headline, here is the article again. It is much more balanced than the blog title.

Toyotas' sudden acceleration blamed for more deaths - latimes.com

 

I was driving on bad streets in Tucson. Hit a pothole and the uneven streets and hit the brake immediately when the cars ahead of me were slowly going to the traffic light. I knew I would not make it and the car ahead of me (way ahead of me) hit her brakes. I braked again and they did NOT work at all. I looked down to see if my foot was actually on the brake and it was. I pumped them about twice, screamed, my car revved up big time and I went under another car with the spare tire almost breaking my windshield. Car totaled. Me, hospital with injuries. Now Toyota is coming to check my EDR but I don't know if the 2006 Prius was updated. Does anyone have info on this? They told me I cannot watch the EDR check, I will have to wait 4 weeks! Fortunately (or not) they are going to see our terrible streets. I am pretty stressed out from all of this....

 

what is edr?

how can you have a near fatal accident at 10mph? were you wearing your seatbelt? were you following too close to the car in front of you?

how many miles on your car, has it been properly maintained?

 

Electronic data recorder, a standard item in all cars at least since since airbags were mandated.

Did you put your full body weight into the brake pedal, or at least 112 pounds (the english equivalent of a metric standard)?

I ask because there are some legally allowed failure modes where the power brake assist fails, and the underlying hydraulics are still required to function like old fashioned manual brakes without power assist. But the surprise factor is enough to keep many drivers who never drove with manual brakes from applying enough foot pressure.

When legally tolerable, it is still best to wring out any systematic failures, especially any problems that may exist in the controller firmware.

 

thanks, all i could think of was urology related.