Former Toyota Attorney Alleges Toyota Rollover Conspiracy

All that is needed is an inquiry on Toyota's e-mails and contacts, oh wait there were no e-mails for this period of time. How strange is that? As always, the messenger is burned at the stake.

Actually, I tried to post this past weekend, but to read from the horses mouth on the report done by CBS go to this site:

http://www.politicalposts.com/news/frameset.asp?vars=jumpto.asp?id=373334

reminds me of the following conspiracies:

1960's: Chevy Corvair: Unsafe at any speed
1970's: Ford Pinto: Exploding gas tanks
1980's: Audi 5000: Unintended acceleration
1990's: Ford Explorer Rollovers
2000's: Toyota Rollover's

1980's: Audi 5000: Unintended acceleration

This is why I stop watching 60 Minutes

http://blogs.thecarconnection.com/marty-blog/1020726_a-short-sad-history-of-so-called-sudden-acceleration

Out of all of the above, only Audi was found not to have had a defective product.

In November 1986, the CBS news show 60 Minutes aired a dramatic segment that skewered Audi's largest sedan, then called the 5000, as fatally dangerous, due to its alleged tendency to accelerate out of control.

Because 60 Minutes couldn't get the cars it tested to replicate the "unintended acceleration", the show modified an Audi 5000 to behave as if it were accelerating out of control, then aired the segment.

The piece included the lurid tale of a mother who ran over her 6-year-old son. Images of wrecked Audis occupied minutes of air time. And the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration embarked on a lengthy investigation.

The agency concluded that because the Audi's accelerator and brake pedals were placed close together, inattentive drivers were confusing the two by pressing the accelerator when they intended to brake. Europeans, it should be noted, recorded no such incidents.

In the end, the NHTSA attributed the incidents to driver error, and closed their investigation. A halfhearted partial retraction from 60 Minutes made no mention of that conclusion.

But by then, the damage was done. Audi sales had plummeted after the segment aired, and it took the automaker a full 15 years to build its sales back to their 1986 level, and for the public image of runaway vehicles to fade.

(Note)
But it turns out that all of the people featured who sued Audi eventually lost
their cases. And the woman used in the "teaser" opening the clips that run
just before the ticking clock at the start of each 60 Minutes show was later
fined for filing a frivolous suit.

This trait is inherent in all truck based SUV's! Does anyone remember the Ford Explorer fiasco? They blamed it on the tires but if you over-correct with a sweaving 5,000 pound truck it will roll over. Tires had nothing to to woith roof-crush. They thought about changing to laws, but as they sit now a car has to meet 1 1/2 times it's weight of the roof, a truck baed SUV does not!

Why is that? As they were being developed pick-up trucks were never intended for the city. So they actually have lower crash standards than cars. So when the SUV boom took off with it's modern poster car (Ford Explorer) it and all pick-up truck based SUVs are not able to safely protect it's passengers. Car companies found out they can build very profitable SUVs for the same money it costs them to build a pickup truck. So they lobbied congress (GM, Ford, Toyota, Nissan,etc) to not raise the roof crush standards which have not changed since 1972 +/-, because it would be detrimental to their business. So these car companies do not really car about customers, it is the profits they really car about. And Ford dispatched dozens of lawyers around the country to pay off people of the roof-crush fiasco with a blank check. That is why most never made it to court.

Because the product liability cases would have bankrupted Ford. But you can still buy a truck-based SUV to put your family in. And buy the way, roll-over accidents make up about 10% of all accidents, but about 91% of rollovers are fatal. Take a look at Ford Explorer or a truck-based SUV accidents, almost eveyone of them has roof crush! Buy the safest car you can afford!

While I will blindly agree with most of your statements, the 10% and 91% statistics are poorly put out of proportion. It would be akin to saying 10% of accidents happen to vehicles over the speed of 75mph and 90% of them are fatal. Yes I made up those numbers, but the method in how they were given I see as very manipulative.

The conspiracy accusation is that Toyota supposedly hid data that showed the roofs of their vehicles are weak, and therefore when a driver rolled-over and was injured, Toyota had some liability because they under-engineered the roof...but who knows. The records have been sealed.

It would seem to me, if Toyota is so concerned about their customer base, then if the roofs were engineered properly, showing the records wouldn't be and issue would it.

When did you put it in? I hit the button late Saturday night.

I'd also like to point out that I did a little more digging into Biller and the chronology of events than CBS did.