When you’ve shelled out big bucks for a message, the dissenters have to be squashed – and fast. Yesterday, Toyota public relations rapid response team tried to bring the Toyota Unintended Acceleration (UA) problem back into its multi-million-dollar corral at the There’s Nothing to See Here, Folks Ranch. Mike Michels, Vice President for External Communications [...]
As part of our ongoing investigation into Unintended Acceleration in Toyota vehicles, Safety Research & Strategies has identified 330 UA complaints reported to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for incidents that occurred in 2011. These complaints range from consumers who experienced multiple instances of UA to events that resulted in a crash. Below, we’ve [...]
A new technical paper from the research scientists at the University of Maryland’s Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering (CALCE) buttresses the findings of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and NASA’s Engineering Safety Center investigation into Toyota unintended acceleration: Toyota vehicles with potentiometer type accelerator pedal position sensors have a propensity to grow tin [...]
The Senior Judge of the Florida’s Fifth Judicial Circuit has set aside a jury verdict in favor of Ford Motor Company, blasting the automaker for defrauding the court and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration by claiming that it knew of no other cause of unintended acceleration than driver error and for concealing years of [...]
We here at the Safety Record Blog are getting caught up on our blogging after a hectic before-the-holiday-weekend week attending Edmund.com’s Let’s Blame it on the Drivers conference and releasing our response to the NHTSA and NESC report on Toyota. If you haven’t had a chance to read this special edition of The Safety Record, [...]
REHOBOTH, MASS – The Safety Record, Safety Research & Strategies’ watchdog publication, published its new findings on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) reports on Toyota Unintended Acceleration. Following extensive review of those reports and previously unavailable documents recently released by NHTSA and interviews with numerous [...]
Too bad Martin Truex Jr.’s Toyota NASCAR wasn’t equipped with an electronic throttle. ‘Cause if it did, no way would he have taken that hard hit in the turn at the Martinsville Speedway yesterday. The veteran NASCAR driver emerged from his flaming Toyota unscathed – and puzzled. “We had a throttle stuck wide open – [...]
It took a hot New York minute for Toyota to announce on its website that it had won a “key” unintended acceleration case. Today, a New York jury in the Eastern District of New York delivered a favorable verdict to Toyota in the case of Dr. Amir Sitafalwalla, who claimed an errant floor mat responsible [...]
Dear Toyota: Why did you buy back Tim Scott’s 2007 Lexus RX? We mean, really? You gave him a bunch of different reasons, but he doesn’t believe you. (We’re finding it a little hard to swallow, too.) Awaiting your reply, SRS Here’s Tim Scott’s story. In early December, as NHTSA and NASA were putting the [...]
Last week, NHTSA pitched its two technical tomes on Toyota unintended acceleration at a pack of reporters, declared that the automaker’s electronics were fine, and ran away. Our esteemed Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood then made the media rounds, grousing that the critics hadn’t read the report, which leads us to ask: Did Ray? We’ve [...]
