Runaway Toyotas Caused by Driver Error? Not So Fast

Was the sudden acceleration that caused the major Toyota recall earlier this year due to driver error?
BY G.E. ANDERSON

Citing "people familiar with the findings," The Wall Street Journal reported today that "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."

NHTSA, however, says otherwise. "It didn't come from us," Julia Piscitelli, a NHTSA spokeswoman, says. "Toyota gave The Wall Street Journal that story. All I can say officially is, ‘No comment.' The investigation is ongoing."

Whether or not Toyota is eventually exonerated for the unintended-acceleration issue, NHTSA will not be returning the record $16.375 million fine Toyota paid in April for not reporting various safety defects in a timely manner.

"Toyota had problems for which they recalled millions and millions of cars," Piscitelli says. "We did a Timeliness Query (TQ) and found out that they had known about those safety defects—sticking gas pedals and poorly designed floor mats—for quite some time before they alerted us."

Toyota, meanwhile, has no immediate plans to release the details of its own vehicle evaluations. "NHTSA has not reported the details of its findings to Toyota and we continue to provide our findings to them," Brian Lyons, Toyota's safety and quality communications manager, said in an e-mail. He went on to say, "Toyota's own vehicle evaluations have confirmed that the remedies it developed for sticking accelerator pedal and potential accelerator pedal entrapment by an unsecured or incompatible floor mat are effective. We have also determined a number of other reasons for customer concerns about unintended acceleration, including cases where an increase in engine speed is normal, such as engine idle up, as well as pedal misapplication. In no case have we found electronic throttle controls to be a cause."

Sudden unintended acceleration is possible for a number of reasons, including a sticking gas pedal, floor mats that may come untethered and trap the gas pedal, a malfunctioning electronic system that opens the throttle and driver error. However, as Popular Mechanics reported in April, it is extremely unlikely that a car's brakes would fail simultaneous to developing a problem with its throttle. See this video for what to do if your car accelerates unintentionally.