Amidst news from Washington, D.C. that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has spoken with representatives of Toyota about the braking system failures in the 2010 Prius, with assurances that his agency will “remain in constant communication with Toyota to hold them to that promise,” Toyota has stated that it is recalling almost 437,000 Priuses and other hybrids around the world.
In the United States, alone, the recall includes 14,500 Lexus HS250h vehicles and 133,000 Prius cars.
While American Prius and Lexus owners will start receiving information about the recall in next week’s mail, Allstate Insurance is claiming they warned federal safety regulators about possible issues with Toyota over two years ago, in late 2007, when they began seeing an increase in reports of “unwanted acceleration” from their claims database.
State Farm, the largest auto insurer in the United States, says it warned the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of the potential problem with Toyotas. This has been confirmed by NHTSA spokeperson Karen Aldana, who said that State Farm forwarded to the agency a September 7, 2007 claim letter addressed to Toyota, about an accident involving a 2005 Camry. The report, Aldana says, was reviewed and added to their complaint database.
Congressional investigators are currently examining the possibility that the government missed warning signs of issues with Toyota vehicles.