Drivers were at fault for failing to brake in most of the cases of ‘runaway’ Toyota vehicles investigated by US safety regulators, an official report said.
A review of data recorders from 58 Toyotas involved in crashes where drivers said their cars had sped out of control showed the brakes were not applied at all in 35 cases, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) found.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
Toyota nonetheless recalled around 10m vehicles worldwide because of dangerous defects, many involving ‘sticky’ accelerator pedal problems that could cause vehicles to speed out of control.
The automaker paid a record US$16.4m fine to the US government earlier this year to settle claims it hid accelerator pedal defects blamed for more than 50 US deaths and is facing numerous of civil lawsuits over issues with “unintended acceleration.”
US safety regulators told AFP it was too soon to reach any definite conclusions about whether Toyota had solved the problem or if vehicle electronic controls could be involved.
“At this early point in its investigation, NHTSA officials have drawn no conclusions about additional causes of unintended acceleration in Toyotas beyond the two defects already known – pedal entrapment and sticking gas pedals,” a briefing note provided to US lawmakers said.
The review of crash data is just “one small part” of the government’s efforts to “get to the bottom of unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles,” Department of Transportation spokeswoman Olivia Alair told the news agency.
“At the request of Congress, experts at NHTSA and NASA are currently conducting research at labs across the United States to determine whether there are potential electronic or software defects in Toyotas that can cause unintended acceleration.”
Toyota’s top executives have repeatedly denied publicly that the sudden, sometimes deadly surges in speed stemmed from flaws in the electronic systems that govern acceleration and braking.
Instead, the firm has blamed jammed floor mats or ‘sticky’ pedals, or driver error, and has vigorously attacks claims that there could be electronic ‘ghosts’ in its systems.
“Having conducted more than 4,000 on site vehicle inspections, in no case have we found electronic throttle controls to be a cause of unintended acceleration,” spokesman Brian Lyons told AFP.
“Toyota’s own vehicle evaluations have confirmed that the remedies it developed for sticking accelerator pedal and potential accelerator pedal entrapment by an unsecured or incompatible floor mat are effective.”
The NHTSA reviewed the event data recorders of 58 Toyota vehicles involved in crashes where drivers reported sudden, unintended acceleration.
Of those, 35 showed the brake was not applied at all and one recorder showed that both the brake and accelerator pedal were depressed.
Another 14 cases involved partial braking: nine of those had brakes applied late in the crash sequence; three involved early braking and two involved mid-event braking. One incident involved a case of pedal entrapment.
In seven cases, the event record was not triggered by the crash, did not contain information related to the crash, or contained inconclusive information.
15 July 2010 – US: Toyota “planted” driver error story: NHTSA
