NHTSA Refuses To Open Investigation On New Toyota Unintended Acceleration Cases

Oy vey! Haven't we done this one enough times already? Let's do a quick review:

- A number of people in Toyota cars inist the vehicle accelerated unintentionally while they were mashing the brake in an attempt to stop the car. There were even some fatalities.

- Police investigated the accident scenes and could find no evidence to suggest the cars were at fault.

- CSIs (Crime Scene Investigators) investigates all known evidence and could find nothing to suggest the cars were at fault.

- The government held multiple inquisitions against Toyo, being certain there was a problem, but found none.

- NASA -- yea, the rocket scientist brainiacs -- were brought in to examine the physical evidence, and also to examine all of Toyota's computer code, just in case a computer glitch was causing the problem. The folks who put men on the moon, rovers on Mars, probes beyond our solar system, and who landed a probe on a frickin' comet moving faster than a bullet -- concluded there was no flaw in Toyota cars or software that could cause the alleged unintended acceleration.

- Government inquisitions persisted against Toyota, because even though nobody could find any evidence of any fault that could cause the alleged unintended acceleration, some government people were certain there must be one, so they kept hunting for witches. Toyota was stymied because they couldn't fix a problem that could not be identified, and likely didn't exist within the cars.

- After multiple inquisitions (AKA Witch Hunts) that turned up nothing, and while the feds were still conducting more hunts, Toyota and the government struck a deal: Toyota would "do some stuff," and the feds would stop hunting for witches.

- Toyota did some stuff, the feds stopped their witch hunt, and slowly over time, the alleged problem went away. Note that the actual witch hunts in prior centuries also stopped before the accusations of witchcraft stopped, but eventually, no more witches were found and killed, so I guess the witch hunts worked, right?


The official conclusion of every agency working on the job is that the cause of the alleged unintended acceleration was a phenomenon known as "pedal misapplication," which is the politically correct way of saying "the driver BELIEVED they were standing on the brake pedal, when in fact they were mashing the accelerator."

For those who are old enough to remember, the alleged Audi unintended acceleration fiasco played out pretty much the same way. It's been done before. Not much new here.

Also interesting to note is that new evidence has not come to light to suggest there could actually be a problem in Toyota (or Audi) cars that could actually cause the car to accelerate unintentionally, but that does not stop lawyers from trying to get some income from this story. Well, there's also the conspiracy theorists who believe there was a cover-up. What better evidence of a conspiracy than the complete lack of evidence? :-)

Sheesh :-/

You forgot to mention the billion dollar fine Toyota paid for not finding the problem.

Witnessed an out of control Toyota first hand. Mother dropping her kids off at an elementary school lost control. Piled down the middle of the road before hitting 4 cars right in front of the school. She clipped the mirror off the car in front of me and just missed me. Wish I could post a picture of the accident. There is no way this one could be attributed to poor driving.

jeffgall: You got a point there. Once we realize that human error doesn't exist, then the only thing left is a fault with the car. Thanks for pointing that out.

OMG what is there to investigate??? Toyota and Lexus drivers drive like complete idiots. Period. No surprise they cannot tell the accelerator from the brake.
There is now a facebook page devoted to hating on Prius drivers that hog the left lane below speed of traffic.

Right outside of my company in Denver...i Saw 3 bmws in a row rearend each other. Yup..the Ultimate Driving Machine driven by the Ultimate Idiots!

— TheSteve, concise viewpoint! I couldn't have said it better myself. The days of citizens taking responsibility for their own actions are gone. If the black box was in any of those idiot piloted Audi 5000s, there would have been the same outcome as the current situation that continues to plague all auto manufacturers.

Audi made the mistake of making their cars performance oriented and easy to heal/toe by placing the brake and accelerator pedals too close together for typical drivers...that was their "crime".

Oh and if the pictured Lexus above is the wreck in question, it is a 1999-2003 model...they turned like the Queen Mary.

Some people always look for a scapegoat for accidents, aided by lawyers looking for deep pockets to go after. These cases get reported all brands. I wonder if any of the collision avoidance systems would prevent or minimize these.