NHTSA Findings Continue To Point To DRIVER ERROR, Again. Is Toyota Nearly In The Clear?

This is starting to get old, huh?

Looks like those "electrical gremlins" that everyone was hootin' and hollerin' about don't exactly exist. Not yet, at least.

In a preliminary report issued by the National Research Council, displayed that 58 of the Toyota "black box" recorders did not find anything substantially linking a "ghost in the machine," as The Truth About Cars puts it.

What do you make of this, Spies?

This isn’t so much a news item as a “Congress finally figured it out” item. A preliminary report by the National Research Council, recently revealed to congress, shows that of 58 Toyota “black box” event data recorders from crashes which occurred during the recall scandal

35 showed that at the moment of impact, the driver hadn’t depressed the brake pedal at all. Fourteen more showed partial braking, while nine showed the brake depressed at the “last second” before the crash.
There were a handful of other results where the brake was pressed early and let go, or in which both the gas and brake pedals were pressed at the same time. There also was one case of pedal entrapment by a floor mat.
In five cases, the electronic recording device failed to work.

[Source: The Truth About Cars]

Mini Takes The States Rally Photo Gallery

2011 Scion tC Launch Photo Gallery

2011 Audi A8 Real World Photo Gallery

2010 NISMO 370Z Photo Gallery

2011 VW Jetta Photo Gallery

AutoSpies.com Photo Galleries

If you want to see your photos running on our homepage photo ticker, be sure to upload your photos on the go by sending them to Mobile@AutoSpies.com

Share on Facebook

Read Article

MorePower - 8/10/2010 10:45:48 PM

-2 Boost

No, Toyota is no where near being in the clear. What the study says is that from the cases it has seen, the evidence gathered points to poor throttle application. It only takes one engineer to find that missing or wrongly coded instruction in the ecm or be able to reproduce with 99% accuracy certain circumstances that causes a runaway car.

Toyota's problems are not over until the statue of limitations runs out.

dodgedart - 8/10/2010 11:01:04 PM

+7 Boost

Audi had to do the time and they never had a reputation for great quality to live up to. Audi just figured out a way to find customers with better reflexes. Toyota appeals to a broader demographic, it might take a while longer. Maybe Toyota engineers can engineer a solution to pedal misapplication.

Agent009 - 8/11/2010 10:44:11 AM

-2 Boost

Actually this is a good thing. The evidence is overwhelming in Toyota's favor and needs to be brought forward.

Now comes the bigger issues at hand though. Did they routinely cover up and delay recalls to save money. I do feel in that situation they might have but probably no more than any other automaker does.

they just got caught doing it.

r15mohd - 8/11/2010 4:40:32 AM

+3 Boost

and toyota beats'em down...again!

LexSucks - 8/11/2010 9:02:38 AM

+1 Boost

It's always driver error. Car manufacturers are incapable of making a mistake, only the driver can make mistakes.

But seriously, I think that it was probaly driver error combined with a poor design (and Toyota being cheap). There's a reason why every other make isn't going through what toyota is going though now.

LexSucks - 8/11/2010 2:00:21 PM

-1 Boost

"Every other make didn't have a meteoric rise, nor was squarely focused on quality and reliability either. "

- So it’s OK for a car company to skimp because they are in the midst of a meteoric rise? Poor excuse. And what about Hyundai? They went from nothing yet their cars aren't being accused of killing people.

And Toyota used to be squarely focused on quality and reliability but they gave that up for profits. Even Toyota admits that.