{"id":296,"date":"2010-07-14T21:38:06","date_gmt":"2010-07-15T05:38:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carinsurancelist.com\/blog\/?p=296"},"modified":"2010-07-14T21:38:06","modified_gmt":"2010-07-15T05:38:06","slug":"toyota-blames-poor-driving-for-acceleration-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.carinsurancelist.com\/blog\/2010\/07\/toyota-blames-poor-driving-for-acceleration-issues\/","title":{"rendered":"Toyota Blames Poor Driving for Acceleration Issues"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier today, Reuters<\/em> reported that a statement from Toyota Motor Corp. pins roughly 2,000 instances of unintended acceleration on bad driving rather than a faulty electronic system, after months of investigation. <\/p>\n

The statement from Toyota came on the heels of a Wall Street Journal<\/em> report implying that analysts working for the U.S. government had determined driver error to be a factor in some of the cases. The report cited people who were familiar with the unreleased test results from the U.S. Department of Transportation, and concluded that some of the drivers who claimed that their Toyota or Lexus vehicles surged beyond their control may have stepped on the accelerator rather than the brake. The Department of Transportation, however, would not confirm this. <\/p>\n

According to Toyota, they never received findings from the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration), but that the organization had come to a similar conclusion of “pedal misapplication” as the real culprit in some cases of unintended speeding. The automaker provided NHTSA with 10 event data recorders, and also provided four recorders to Canadian authorities, and has also shared all of its findings from 2,000 on-site inspections. <\/p>\n

Currently, U.S. regulators are in the midst of an investigation of possible problems with Toyota’s electronic throttles, and whether or not there are any glitches that may have caused unintended acceleration. Since the year 2,000 there have been as many as 89 crash deaths that may be linked to unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles. The NHTSA investigation has employed space agency experts to examine the software-driven throttles, and will also enlist the aid and expertise of an independent scientific panel, which is already in the process of studying the matter. <\/p>\n

It is not likely that there will be any kind of conclusion for several months. <\/p>\n

It should be noted that NHTSA has reviewed Toyota vehicles for years, and has never yet found a link between electronic throttles and unintended acceleration. Toyota itself maintains that the throttles are not the issue, and that the cause of such acceleration is to be blamed (if not on bad drivers) to improperly-fitted floor mats which can jam the pedals, causing them not to spring back into place after being depressed. <\/p>\n

It is the floor mat issue which resulted in the worldwide recall of over 8 million Toyotas and Lexuses between October, 2009, and January, 2010. Toyota faces a potential civil liability estimated at more than $10 billion from lawsuits sparked by complaints of runaway cars and trucks.<\/p>\n

In line with a significant rise in other Japanese automaker’s stocks, shares in Toyota rose 4.6 percent this morning in Tokyo, but Hiroaki Kuramochi, chief equity marketing officer at Tokai Tokyo Securities, theorizes, “It’s basically the weaker yen. Exporters and other auto shares are all pretty strong on this.” He added, “The Toyota issue is pretty much worn out as a factor; it’s been priced in. This is especially true since some of it may have been a kind of Japan-bashing taken up as a political factor.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier today, Reuters reported that a statement from Toyota Motor Corp. pins roughly 2,000 instances of unintended acceleration on bad driving rather than a faulty electronic system, after months of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,30],"tags":[187,32],"class_list":["post-296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-auto-safety","category-recalls","tag-acceleration-issues","tag-toyota-recall","cat-15-id","cat-30-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carinsurancelist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carinsurancelist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carinsurancelist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carinsurancelist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carinsurancelist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.carinsurancelist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":297,"href":"https:\/\/www.carinsurancelist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296\/revisions\/297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carinsurancelist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carinsurancelist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carinsurancelist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}