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

P.J. O'Rourke is smiling somewhere.

 

I’d say that a lot of those cars that were in accidents weren’t in accidents because of Toyota’s accelerator problem. A lot of them were just accidents and the driver, knowing of Toyota’s recall, wanted to use an excuse to get out of a certain insurance points hit for having rear-ended someone else.

None of that is to say that the cars didn’t have an accelerator problem or wouldn’t have had one in the future. It’s just people trying to scam their way out of blame.

 

In the 'Schland the fuel economy standard was number of liters consumed per 100 km. To convert that to MPG you have to damn near have a chemistry degree.

 

Exactly. While I'm sure there are some bad drivers coming out of the woodwork to blame Toyota for their lack of driving skills, I have a hard time believing that's happening in EVERY case, especially when such problems aren't being reported in vehicles from other manufacturers.
It reminds me of the Ford Exploder/Firestone tire debacle from a few years ago. I believe it was Firestone officials blaming drivers for improper tire inflation. So why weren't other tires on other SUVs having the same issues? Only Exploder drivers riding on Firestones didn't know how to check the air pressure?

 

There ARE acceleration incidents with all makes and models, but for a while there, CNN and other "must show something for 24 hours" news networks had their cool video of the out-of-control Toyota, and they "floored" their coverage until the next celebrity scandal, hurricane, etc., came along.

While there may have been a few accelerator-sticking problems, this definitely was blown out of proportion. We have two Camrys, and they're good cars. They are the longtime, No. 1 selling car for a reason.

 

Keep in mind the DOT report hasn't been released yet. And there are allegations the original report was planted by Toyota.

http://www.autoblog.com/2010/07/15/report-wsj-unintended-acceleration-story-planted-by-toyota/