Shocking! DOT determines alleged stuck Toyota accelerators were result of driver

Why am I NOT surprised by this. Toyota is still not off the hook .. but human error is to blame for some of the alleged Toyota accelerator problems. Wonder how many of the drivers were over the age of 70?



http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2010/07/14/toyota-black-box-tests-driver-error-caused-crashes/

 

If the DOT is like all the other regulatory agencies, this is merely the industry conducting its "experiments" and telling the government what the "science" is. BP, the food industry, mercury polluters -- they all basically write their own laws.

 

Take the over...

 

I can't help but wonder if the reason everybody made such a big deal out of this had anything to do with this being a foreign company. I've lost track of the number of recalls I've heard about in the past year and most get about a trillionth of the coverage Toyota did and they didn't have to have their CEO testify in front of Congress.

I drive a Toyota and I will buy another one when I get my next car.

 

I don't think they determined that the accelerators were stuck as a result of driver error -- just that the drivers didn't apply the brakes when the accelerators were "stuck."

So either they panicked and stepped on the gas instead or panicked and failed to step on the brake.

 

Toyota may be a foreign car but almost all (if not all) are built here in North America. The auto industry pretty much operates without borders now.

I drove a Camry for fifteen years and after almost 300,000 kilometers, very little went wrong. It just ended up dying of old age.

 

But, important to the pols and the North American car manufacturers, they are built by workers who are not members of the UAW.

 

The accelerator supposedly "sticks" if you floor it?

Who the hell "floors" the accelerator?

This story was the equivalent of the "summer of the shark".

There was little to no proof of any wrongdoing by the manufacturer, but the media and politicians saw an opportunity to use the story for their own purposes.

 

You realize that none of us have any idea of how far that is, right?

I mean, you could have said a million parsecs and it would register about the same.



(Kidding of course, it's around 180,000 miles.)

 

What's funny is that if I tell my kids, oh, it's about 50 Miles (I swing both ways when it comes to Imperial and Metric), I get a blank stare.

Same with feet, yards and inches. No clue what I'm talking about.

 

1. Has someone alleged wrongdoing? I think the issue is that there seemed to be problems that Toyota may or may not have been addressing properly.

2. Why would the media leap to do a false story on the world's leading car manufacturer when car ads make up a huge percentage of TV and print ad sales?

I think the biggest problem is some people don't know how to drive and some people panic when thrown a curve.

 

At the very least, a coverup was charged.

It was also claimed that Toyota knew about the problem but that their number crunchers determined that a recall would be more expensive than the cost of defending lawsuits and/or paying settlements.

They were accused of knowingly letting people die to save money.

The media's role? You don't think they hyped it?

Why? Because they probably believed it. But they ran with it before checking it out and getting some proof.