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-Unless you have been living off the planet Earth, you have probably already read or heard about several mechanical failures in Toyota automobiles that led the automaker famous for quality to recall nearly nine million cars worldwide. In addition, poor handling of the issue in the public eye has damaged the automaker’s brand reputation and caused sales to fall to their lowest point in more than a decade.
-NEW YORK — The Department of Transportation has analyzed dozens of black boxes in Toyota vehicles involved in accidents blamed on unintended acceleration, finding the throttles were open and the brakes were not engaged, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
That suggests that drivers of the speeding cars were stepping on the accelerator rather than hitting the brakes. The vehicles investigated came from a sample in which the drivers said they were braking but failed to stop the car before crashing, the newspaper said, citing unnamed sources familiar with the findings.
Transportation Department officials declined to confirm the report and did not comment. Toyota spokesman Mike Michels said the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has not shared its findings with the Japanese automaker but said their own findings from investigations of unintended acceleration are consistent with the report.
The black boxes, called event data recorders, are devices that track a number of details about a vehicle around the time of an accident, including which pedals were applied and how fast the car was traveling.
Toyota has recalled more than 8.5 million vehicles worldwide since last fall due to faulty accelerators, floor mats that may trap gas pedals, and brake problems in Priuses, among other problems. The largest problems were due to unintended acceleration, which the automaker has sought to address by fixing the gas pedals and floor mats.
The government has said unintended acceleration in Toyotas may have been involved in the deaths of 93 people over the past decade. The agency has received about 3,000 complaints of sudden acceleration in Toyotas.
Daniel Smith, NHTSA's associate administrator for enforcement, told a panel with the National Academy of Sciences reviewing unintended acceleration last month that the agency had not yet found any defects beyond the two problems cited by Toyota: pedals that can become entrapped by floor mats and sticking accelerator pedals.
-Fatal Houston crash leads to lawsuit against Toyota
The family of a Houston woman whose car sped through a stop sign and smashed into a cement wall, killing her on impact a week before Christmas, filed what is likely the third acceleration-related wrongful death lawsuit against Toyota in the nation Monday.
Trina Renee Harris, a 34-year-old mother of two, died on impact when her 2009 Toyota Corolla slammed into an East Hardy Toll Road cement divider at Barry, leaving no skid marks, Houston police reported.
Her husband, Michael Harris, filed a lawsuit Monday against Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., gas pedal maker CTS Corp. and Fred Haas Toyota World, which leased her the car. Lawyers involved in the lawsuit said it's likely the third such case filed in response to acceleration problems that prompted Toyota to recall millions of vehicles and halt some production.
“I want those who were negligent to be held responsible. This problem was there before Dec. 18 when she died,” Michael Harris said. The U.S. Navy petty officer first class had recently completed a stint on an aircraft carrier in the Middle East and was in San Diego when he learned of his wife's death. He returned to Houston, where the family opened Christmas gifts Trina Harris had bought.
“I have a whirlwind of emotions. I'm extremely angry for my children. She won't be there for the prom. When they get married, she won't be there,” Harris said in an interview at the offices of his Houston attorneys, Ken and Judy Mingledorff.
‘Mama Trina'
The man, who met the love of his life as they giggled during driver's education at Forest Brook High School, said her death was avoidable. “If there's a problem, you don't put it off,” he said. “This is about people's lives. Money should not outweigh people's lives.”
His wife worked in a school cafeteria so she would be home by the time her teenage girls got there, Harris said. “She was just Mama Trina and everyone knew they had a place to sleep or a meal if they needed it when she was around.”
Harris said he finds himself dialing his wife's cell phone to tell her about his day.
Toyota issued a voluntary recall related to floor mats and the accelerators in some 3.8 million vehicles in November. Last month it recalled 2.3 million cars, including many 2009 Carollas, to fix a mechanical problem with the accelerators.
Toyota issued a voluntary recall related to floor mats and the accelerators in some 3.8 million vehicles in November. Last month it recalled 2.3 million cars, including many 2009 Carollas, to fix a mechanical problem with the accelerators.
Harris said the crash didn't make sense to him and he recalled his wife saying the leased car's accelerator sometimes seemed to move on its own.
He went to the accident scene and then called Toyota before the January recall to tell them there was something wrong.
He said he never heard back from Toyota. But when he heard about the latest recall, he sought out the lawyers and sued, asking for $200 million in actual and punitive damages for what he alleged is gross negligence.
“Toyota is building death traps and they know it and they need to stop it,” said lawyer Ken Mingledorff.
No comment
A Toyota spokeswoman said Monday that the company would not comment on pending litigation. A manager at Fred Haas said they have not yet seen the lawsuit and calls to CST Corp. were not returned.
Other wrongful death lawsuits against Toyota have been filed in Michigan and California.
The California lawsuit seeks compensation for the loss of a state trooper and family members whose August 2009 crash can be heard on tapes of his 911 call saying his Lexus was going 120 mph and he couldn't stop it.
The Michigan lawsuit was filed by the surviving family of a woman whose Camry missed her regular turn and careened at 80 mph down a street while she tried to pump the brakes until the car hit a tree in 2008. Her Camry was not listed among the recalls, however.
mary.flood@chron.com
-When The Wall Street Journal reported that crash data obtained by the U.S. Department of Transportation pegged the blame for Toyota's unintended acceleration on drivers, one line stuck out:
"A NHTSA spokeswoman declined to comment on the findings, which haven't been released by the agency."
With no official word from the DOT or NHTSA on its findings in the case, the WSJ's sources have been called into question.
According to an unnamed NHTSA spokeswomen speaking with Just-Auto, "The story was planted by Toyota. Toyota is the source – yes we know that for definite [sic]. It is [the] Toyota PR machine. We knew they were going to put it out."
There's no doubt Toyota is in close contact with the DOT and NHTSA, so there's a good chance that Toyota has been privy to the findings ahead of their official release. However, until something official comes down from the Feds, the exact causes of unintended acceleration aren't simply open and shut.
We're in the process of contacting both NHTSA and Toyota about the story and will update you as more information is collected.
UPDATE: A NHTSA spokesperson has confirmed that the agency hasn't released any information to the WSJ, but declined to comment if Toyota has gained advanced access to the agency's findings.
UPDATE 2: A report by the Detroit Free Press quotes NHTSA Administrator David Strickland as saying that the agency has "several more months of work" to complete before it can definitively come to a conclusion on the cause of unintended acceleration.
UPDATE 3: We've asked Toyota's National Manager for Environmental, Quality, and Safety Communications, John Hanson, if NHTSA has been supplying information to Toyota on its investigation. His response: "It's been a one-way valve [to NHTSA]. We've been supplying information and sending it to NHTSA. We are not aware of any study. We are not aware of any report. We've been compiling our own field reports on unintended acceleration and as we investigate them, we send them to NHTSA. The WSJ report was news to us."
[Source: Just-Auto]
Filed under: Recalls, Safety, Lexus, Toyota
Tags: department of transportation, DepartmentOfTransportation, dot, lexus, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, NationalHighwayTrafficSafetyAdministration, nhtsa, toyota, toyota recall, ToyotaRecall
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said two investigators from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration were sent to join a team from the California Highway Patrol "to be part of the investigation."
"Two investigators are flying out to California to examine the car and look for potential causes," NHTSA spokeswoman Olivia Alair said in a statement.
"NHTSA is reminding owners of all recalled vehicles to contact their dealers immediately if they are experiencing problems," Alair said.
Toyota said its own inspectors were also working on Tuesday to try to find out what caused the 2008 Prius to surge uncontrollably to over 90 miles per hour as it was being driven by owner James Sikes, 61.
The high-speed incident, which involved a dramatic pursuit by a highway patrol car, has raised new questions about the automaker's damaging string of recent recalls and whether Toyota has done enough to address consumer complaints about unintended acceleration that have damaged its reputation and sales.
California Highway Patrol spokesman Brian Pennings said police has no reason to doubt Sikes' account of the incident and every reason to believe him, based on officers' own observations and evidence of heavy brake use on the car at the time.
"There was heavy brake dust on the inside of the wheels and the brakes were smoking when the officer finally caught up to him," Pennings told Reuters on Tuesday.
Pennings said Sikes also appeared genuinely shaken by the incident and complained of chest pains, prompting police to call paramedics, who evaluated him at the scene. Sikes ultimately calmed down and was not taken to a hospital, he said.
Because there was no crash, and no damage or injuries, the highway patrol did not conduct its own mechanical inspection of the car, Pennings said.
The Prius was taken to a Toyota dealership in El Cajon, California, where Toyota investigators were examining the car, Toyota spokeswoman Celeste Migliore said.
The Prius has been a "halo" car for the world's top automaker and dominates the market for fuel-efficient hybrid vehicles.
Sikes said he had received a recall notice to take his car into a Toyota dealership; but when he did, he was told that his car was not on recall lists, he told reporters.
The automaker has recalled the 2004-2009 Prius hybrids due to concerns that loose floor mats could entrap accelerator pedals, causing unintended acceleration.
On Monday afternoon, Sikes was passing another car on a highway near San Diego when the Prius accelerated out of control, the highway patrol said.
For the next 20 minutes, Sikes sped 30 miles along the freeway, he said.
"I pushed the gas pedal to pass a car and it did something kind of funny," Sikes told reporters. "It jumped and it just stuck there. As it was going, I was trying the brakes ... It wasn't stopping."
Sikes called the local 911 emergency service, and the highway patrol dispatched an officer who pulled alongside the Prius. The trooper used a loudspeaker to tell Sikes to use the emergency and regular brakes and to turn off the car's engine.
Once the Prius slowed to around 50 mph, Sikes turned off the engine of the car and it rolled to a stop with the trooper's car in front of it.
A California Highway Patrol spokesperson in San Diego said the cause of the runaway car incident remains under investigation. "We do not have any initial findings at this point," she said.
Toyota has recalled more than 8 million vehicles worldwide for mechanical problems that can cause the accelerator to stick and for the risk that floor mats could trap an accelerator.
Shares of Toyota were down 1.9 percent to $76.50 in U.S. trading on Tuesday. The stock has lost about 15 percent since January 21, when the company announced a recall of 2.3 million vehicles to fix sticky accelerator pedals.
Unintended acceleration in the company's Toyota and Lexus vehicles has been linked to at least five U.S. crash deaths since 2007. Authorities are investigating 47 other Toyota crash deaths over the past decade.
Monday's incident, which attracted widespread media coverage, happened in the same Southern California county as a fatal crash in August 2009 that prompted new scrutiny of Toyota's safety record.
In that case, Mark Saylor, an off-duty California Highway Patrol trooper, and three family members were killed when a Lexus ES 350 they were driving sped out of control.
Toyota has said repeatedly that it believes that there is no problem with its electronic throttle control system.
A spokesman for the automaker said on Monday that it believed the steps it had taken should address the problems with reported unintended acceleration if repairs were completed properly.
(Additional reporting by Soyoung Kim; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Gerald E. McCormick)
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