Akido Toyoda weighs as much as a duck.
Burn the witch. The media here in the States is foaming at the mouth and the fat, recently bailed out likes of GM and Chrysler are circling like vultures, hoping to pick off one or two of Toyotas less intelligent customers. The FBI has raided Toyota suppliers and politicians eager for reelection are wasting no time pulling out the rhetoric to demonstrate the extent of their patriotism.
Without getting into too much detail, Toyota has been selling vehicles which – in rare occurrences – mysteriously accelerate on their own. Unless this unintended acceleration only happens when the brake pedal, gear shifter, AND ignition cylinder vanish into thin air, I don’t see how it’s a problem. If you don’t know what to do when and if your car suddenly begins to accelerate, then you have no business behind the wheel of a car. Period.
The numbers.
Toyota has recalled something like 1.4 MILLION vehicles due to this phantom acceleration risk. I’ve heard reports that NHTSA has reports of this problem going all the way back to 2002. Let’s assume Toyota has sold 8 MILLION cars per year since 2000. That would be 80,000,000 Toyotas possible on the road today. Has anyone heard of more than a couple thousand instances of this horrifically dangerous “sudden unintentional acceleration” being mentioned by the NHTSA? I sure haven’t.
To put this in perspective, Ford is still engaged in a recall of over 16 MILLION vehicles because the cruise control switch might short out and cause the car to catch fire – even if the car is parked and turned off! To date, NHTSA has received reports of 60 or so actual fires, while attorneys representing owners estimate that number to be well above 500 confirmed cases. These are fires, where something burns and investigators can conclude that the fire was caused by the faulty product.
Toyota sells something like 80M vehicles in the last decade. They recall 1.4M of them. That’s 1.7%. (Kris Dahl will kindly correct me if I’ve screwed up the math again.) Ford sells something like 80M vehicles in the last decade. The recall 16M of them. That’s 20%.
The Toyotas might, in a rare and mysterious instance that nobody can seem to replicate, suddenly accelerate. OMG!
The Fords, on the other hand, might just catch fire in your garage at 3:28 in the morning and burn your house down.
By the way, NHTSA’s Ray LaHood, in a statement regarding the 16 MILLION Fords that could catch fire at random, basically told owners to keep an eye out for smoke and think about getting their cars in for a check up. Ironic, isn’t it?
2 wrongs DO make a right – in Washington.
NHTSA says they have reports from thousands of Toyota owners relating the terror of raw, untamed Toyota econobox commuter appliances hurtling them into inescapable, nothing-they-could-have-done-about-it event horizon because of this blatant negligence on the part of Toyota going back to something like 2002.
But if this is the case, why didn’t the NHTSA step in sooner? If this situation is truly so dire, why have THEY waited until only now to put on their big boy pants and launch the Spanish Inquisition? That’s really all this is. You know that, don’t you? The entire NHTSA Toyota “hearing” is a spectacle and nothing more. If Toyota knowingly sold truly dangerous vehicles over the years, and NHTSA was aware of the problems, the NHTSA is just as guilty of the “crime.” If the administration tasked with American motorist safety hasn’t made a big deal about these reports over the years, why is it such a terrible thing to think that Toyota didn’t either?
I don’t subscribe to conspiracy theories. Bad things happen because people are ignorant more often than not. I just find this all very frustrating. Despite the examples used in this post, I have nothing against Ford and, in fact, consider myself a fan of their brand and would definitely include their new models when considering a new car purchase. The idea was to paint a picture of the two-faced, three-ringed circus of sensationalist bullshit that’s taken over the mainstream media recently. WAKE UP, PEOPLE. See a problem and FIX IT. Placing blame is unproductive and stupid. Shame we’re so damn good at it.
Your Toyota will not kill you.
Unless you’re completely incompetent behind the wheel. If Toyota burns for this, it will be for as legitimate a reason as Akido Toyoda weighing as much as a duck.
