Fingered Foreign Fleet Fine, Fed Findings Fault Fat Feet

[Dominus Atheos]

WSJ by way of Balloon Juice

Early Tests Pin Toyota Accidents on Drivers

Toyota representatives examined a crashed Toyota Prius in March in Harrison, N.Y.

The U.S. Department of Transportation has analyzed dozens of data recorders from Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles involved in accidents blamed on sudden acceleration and found that the throttles were wide open and the brakes weren't engaged at the time of the crash, people familiar with the findings said.

The U.S. Department of Transportation found that throttles were wide open and brakes not engaged on Toyotas involved in accidents blamed on sudden acceleration, said people familiar with the matter. Mike Ramsey discusses. Also, Joe White and Ashby Jones discuss the U.S. Court ruling striking down certain FCC rules against broadcast indecency.

The early results suggest that some drivers who said their Toyotas and Lexuses surged out of control were mistakenly flooring the accelerator when they intended to jam on the brakes.

But the findings—part of a broad, ongoing federal investigation into Toyota's recalls—don't exonerate the car maker from two known issues blamed for sudden acceleration in its vehicles: "sticky" accelerator pedals that don't return to idle and floor mats that can trap accelerators to the floor.

The findings by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration involve a sample of the reports in which a driver of a Toyota vehicle said the brakes were depressed but failed to stop the car from accelerating and ultimately crashing.

A NHTSA spokeswoman declined to comment on the findings, which haven't been released by the agency.

The data recorders analyzed by NHTSA were selected by the agency, not Toyota, based on complaints the drivers had filed with the government. Toyota hasn't been involved in interpreting the data.

The initial findings are consistent with a 1989 government-sponsored study that blamed similar driver mistakes for a rash of sudden-acceleration reports involving Audi 5000 sedans.

The Toyota findings appear to support Toyota's position that sudden-acceleration reports involving its vehicles weren't caused by electronic glitches in computer-controlled throttle systems, as some safety advocates and plaintiffs' attorneys have alleged. More than 100 people have sued the car maker over crashes they claim were the result of faulty electronics.

It is unknown how many data recorders NHTSA has read so far. The agency's investigators have been reading the data only since Toyota provided the agency with 10 reading devices in March.

Since then, investigators have responded to accidents involving sudden acceleration when the driver claims to have been stepping on the brakes.

Because the data recorders can lose their information if disconnected from the car's battery or if the battery dies—as could happen after a crash—the agency is focusing only on recent accidents, said a person familiar with the situation.

NHTSA has received more than 3,000 complaints of sudden acceleration in Toyotas and Lexuses, including some dating to early last decade, according to a report the agency compiled in March. The incidents include 75 fatal crashes involving 93 deaths.

However, NHTSA has been able to verify that only one of those fatal crashes was caused by a problem with the vehicle, according to information the agency provided to the National Academy of Sciences. That accident last Aug. 28, which killed a California highway patrolman and three passengers in a Lexus, was traced to a floor mat that trapped the gas pedal in the depressed position.

Toyota has since recalled more than eight million cars globally to fix floor mats and sticky accelerators.

The NHTSA spokeswoman said the agency wouldn't comment on its Toyota probe until a broader study is completed in conjunction with NASA, which is expected to take months.
Associated Press

A recalled Toyota gas pedal is posed next to a recalled Toyota Avalon at a dealership in Palo Alto, Calif.

Daniel Smith, NHTSA's associate administrator for enforcement, told a panel of the National Academy of Sciences last month that the agency's sudden-acceleration probe had yet to find any car defects beyond those identified by the company: pedals entrapped by floor mats, and accelerator pedals that are slow to return to idle.

"In spite of our investigations, we have not actually been able yet to find a defect" in electronic throttle-control systems, Mr. Smith told the scientific panel, which is looking into potential causes of sudden acceleration.

"We're bound and determined that if it exists, we're going to find it," he added. "But as yet, we haven't found it."

Some Toyota officials say they are informally aware of the NHTSA data-recorder results. Toyota officials haven't been briefed on the findings, but they corroborate its own tests, said Mike Michels, the chief spokesman for Toyota Motor Sales.
[DRIVER]

Toyota says its own downloads of data recorders have found evidence of sticky pedals and pedal entrapment as well as driver error, which is characterized by no evidence of the brakes being depressed during impact.

Still, since the start of Toyota's troubles late last summer, the Japanese company hasn't blamed drivers for any of the sudden-acceleration incidents, though in many cases the company couldn't find another cause. Toyota President Akio Toyoda has said the company won't pin the blame on customers for its problems as part of its public-relations response.

An attorney who represents four drivers who sued Toyota in state courts over sudden acceleration said the NHTSA finding doesn't mean much for his litigation. "Toyota has always taken the position that the electronic data recorder system is not reliable," said Tab Turner, the Little Rock, Ark., lawyer.

A Toyota spokesman said the company considers the device "a prototype tool. It wasn't designed to tell us exactly what happened in an accident. It was designed to tell us whether our systems were operating properly."

One case studied by U.S. regulators involves Myrna Marseille of Kohler, Wis., who reported in March that her 2009 Toyota Camry accelerated out of control and crashed into a building.

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Ms. Marseille said in an interview Tuesday that she was entering a parking space near a library when she heard the engine roar. "I looked down and my foot was still on the brake, so I did not have my foot on the gas pedal," she said.

Police in Sheboygan Falls, Wis., investigated and believe driver error was to blame, Chief Steven Riffel said Tuesday. He said surveillance video showed that the brake lights didn't illuminate until after the crash. But Mr. Riffel said that determination is preliminary and that his agency has turned over the investigation to NHTSA.

Based on the black box data, NHTSA investigators found that the brake was not engaged and the throttle was wide open, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Ms. Marseille sticks by her story. "It makes me very angry when someone tells me, 'She probably hit the gas pedal instead,' because I think it's a sexist comment, an ageist comment," she said.

[Master of Ossus]

You know, I didn't believe the conspiracy theory that the Obama Administration was out to hurt Toyota in order to help salvage Ford and GM after the country bailed them out. I'm still pretty dubious, but the more that comes out about the "investigation," the more it looks like very high-level authorities rushed to judgment based on little or no evidence about the cars.

[darthdavid]

Except that the logging data is taken from the very system that's commonly thought to be at fault and there's no way to tell the difference between an instance where the throttle is electronically stuck open vs a case where the throttle is genuinely being pressed, so this isn't actually all that definitive...

(Though cases where there's more than ECU log data for evidence like the parking space lady show that it isn't all Toyota's fault, even if there does turn out to be an issue beyond 'sticky pedals').

[Atlan]

Except that the logging data is taken from the very system that's commonly thought to be at fault and there's no way to tell the difference between an instance where the throttle is electronically stuck open vs a case where the throttle is genuinely being pressed, so this isn't actually all that definitive...

(Though cases where there's more than ECU log data for evidence like the parking space lady show that it isn't all Toyota's fault, even if there does turn out to be an issue beyond 'sticky pedals').

How about that fucker in Califormia who led the highway partol on a merry chase, screaming over his phone, and it came out that he was in fact making it all up?

I have zero trouble believing that the vast majority of these incidents is idiots hitting the gas instead of the brakes.
Old folk do this all the time. There's plenty of tales of people ploughing into crowds after hitting the accelerator. They just found something to blame instead of their own incompetence this time.
And remember the Eighties? Audi? Accelerates Under Demonic Infuence? Same shit.

[Vympel]

I did that once. So embarassing. As I was parking with people in the car, I was distracted. Luckily the wooden beam in front of the car was rotten and it broke in two easily, with no damage to the vehicle whatsoever. I had been driving for ... 6 years when that happened. Damn stupid.

If that wooden beam wasn't there, I would've slammed into concrete.

[darthdavid]

I'm not saying that there's definitely an actual problem or anything just that if someone claims "The computer fucked up and registered a false accelerator press" saying "No it didn't, as proof here are some logs from the computer in question showing the accelerator was on" doesn't really cut it as evidence.

[PeZook]

I'm not saying that there's definitely an actual problem or anything just that if someone claims "The computer fucked up and registered a false accelerator press" saying "No it didn't, as proof here are some logs from the computer in question showing the accelerator was on" doesn't really cut it as evidence.

You'd need to take a look at the system schematic before you can say that's what they did, since the data recorder may well be designed to avoid just such a problem, much like flight data recorders record both the position of the control stick and the flight control surfaces.

[Temujin]

I've accidentally nipped the gas pedal when going for the brakes a few times, and as for the floor mats, they've always had a tendency to creep up under the pedals with time. Every time I get in the first thing I do is reach down and tug it back just to be safe. Too many people just don't pay enough attention or practice safe driving habits, and it doesn't help that the training and the standards for people to get and keep their licenses aren't strict enough.

[darthdavid]

I'm not saying that there's definitely an actual problem or anything just that if someone claims "The computer fucked up and registered a false accelerator press" saying "No it didn't, as proof here are some logs from the computer in question showing the accelerator was on" doesn't really cut it as evidence.

You'd need to take a look at the system schematic before you can say that's what they did, since the data recorder may well be designed to avoid just such a problem, much like flight data recorders record both the position of the control stick and the flight control surfaces.

You're right, but I've heard some people blame the throttle sensor itself, and if that's the case, barring a separate sensor (of a different design) for the black-box then the data is, as I said, pretty much useless. As you said, it really depends on exactly how the system's wired and just where the fault is (if one exists).