Toyota Responds to LA Times

I read the original LA Times article that came out just before the Christmas holidays. I could find nothing that was specific to our hybrids, which is why I did not post the URL, much less a summary. But a simple reading and the timing pretty well said someone was out to scalp Toyota ... a journalistic "J'accuse". So the LA Times got a free, holiday weekend to leave the article unanswered.

One of the reasons for going to court is 'rules of evidence.' This means incomplete or inaccurate claims can be addressed by the other side. But in this case, there is no judge or process to separate the truth from bombastic. We the readers are the judge, jury and as customers, executioners.

Like many of us, I have an OBD scanner, a Graham miniscanner, that I frequently connect to a laptop to record engineering data. One of my plans is to install an old laptop under the driver seat to record the six data points all the time my car is running. It is such a natural thing to do, I'm amazed that our Prius doesn't have an 'open source, data recorder' as part of the standard package. An engineer's version of the Event Data Recorder. But this is my individual effort.

There are continuous loop, video recorders that fleet operators can install in their vehicles. Priceless in accident and safety studies, they are expensive unless you need a defense in court. But they don't provide the engineering data we could use to model our cars. That is what I want to accomplish with the Graham miniscanner data.

As far as the LA Times article is concerned and Toyota's reply, I don't have any unique facts and data to contribute. If there is a safety problem, it should be reflected in the NHSA accident data. But to the best of my knowledge, neither the LA Times nor Toyota has done the hard work it takes to analyze the data.

I've looked at the Prius fatal accidents from 2001-2007 and combined with the sales numbers, found half the fatal accident rate that the NHTSA reported for all USA vehicles. This is not a vehicle accident rate but a fatality rate. It is also unique to the Prius, which was not part of the LA Times article (hummm, I wonder why?)

We have excellent accident data and IMHO, Toyota would be well served to do a little 'data mining.' They have the sales records and the NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) is open. Do the math and report the numbers ... I don't have a 'dog in that fight' but if I did I would use the FARS and vehicle inventory to answer with the most powerful argument ... the vehicle fatality rate per 100 million miles.

Bob Wilson

 

Big part of that LA Times article gets refuted today... I am sure that LA times will correct their article (lol).
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Remember when story of ex-Toyota lawyer turned on Toyota, sued them and announced to the world how Toyota concealed, lied and misused evidence in court cases against them? It made all the mainstream media... however lets see if the reversal of fortunes makes Autoblog (hint: i doubt it).

Lawyer Withdraws Cases Against Toyota - Wheels Blog - NYTimes.com

 

Ahh, the poor slobs at LA Times ... business has dropped off in spite of trying to stir drama where there is little. I remember when the Times weighed nearly 10 pounds on the weekend. Now? Heck, the business section is no longer a section ... rather a few pages among the remaining few other pages. So what does the Times do? Alienate one of the few remaining big companies that could advertise in it's paper. Talk about shooting your self in the foot (shaking head). Anyone remember when court cases were held in court? Now, most reporters spend their time asking idiotic speculative questions, "didn't they know this would happen?" ... when the reporters don't even KNOW what happens. oh well.
:mellow:

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