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Drivers Blamed For Out of Control Toyotas - Again
PolygamousRanchKid writes "An intensive 10 month investigation into possible causes of unintended acceleration in Toyota cars found no fault with the automaker's electronic throttle control systems, the Department of Transportation announced Tuesday."
Didn't the NHTSA say essentially the same thing last July?
That does not conflict with the summary or the /. headline. "Driver error" is included in the list, and the submitter did not say that was the ONLY cause.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
It can be all kinds of things, the design of the pedal or which brand of idiots by what car. What I do bet is that this does not happening in stick shift vehicles. I suggest banning slushboxes as a solution.
Just because they "found no problem" (publicly) with the cars, doesn't mean that there isn't one. I've experienced one of these things accelerating personally (multiple times, actually) and I can tell you that there IS something wrong with the cars. I didn't crash into anything, so I don't really have any reason to lie, Don't believe these "findings".
DNA -- National Dyslexic Association
Since one of the people behind the wheel was Steve Wozniak (previous slashdot story hyperlinked here), and he said he'd actually been able to replicate unchecked acceleration by the cruise-control system, I'm not trusting Toyota.
They have a vested interest in not finding a cause. He could not have any possible interest in making a claim of observing a misbehavior in a car he likes to drive.
Nor should anyone at Toyota trust Toyota.
Nor would I trust the government. They're not likely to be bringing A+ talent to the party.
You know normally I would agree.
However, I remember the case of Koua Fong Lee who ended up in prison. I sincerely have a hard time believing that somebody with no history of mental problems, in a car with relatives, in a car with his wife and unborn child, would accelerate down an offramp into another car... on the way home from church.
In order to believe that Toyota has no defects I would have to believe this man just lost it and started screaming "no brakes! no brakes!" to his family while plowing into another car at 70-90mph. He also purportedly had plenty of time to stop starting at the beginning of the offramp, so it would have been a very prolonged panic-stomp-on-gas-instead-of-brake reaction. Which is strange, because if I recall correctly one of the reasons he ended up in prison was the very lack of tire tracks showing that he did brake which the prosecution used to show intent, not manufacturing defects in the car *because the onboard computer could not be wrong*.
So I still don't know about this and I have a vested interest in it not being true since I love Toyota. Had a Prius and hybrid Highlander. I want to get another one, but this situation still gives me pause.