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Toyota?s Largest Ever Recall of Vehicles

By Beth Janicek

Toyota Motor Corp. claims the gas pedal design in more than 4 million Toyota and Lexus vehicles makes them vulnerable to being trapped open by floor mats. On Wednesday it announced a costly recall to fix the problem. Although Toyota has repeatedly pointed to 'floor mat entrapment' as the problem over unintended acceleration events, more people are beginning to believe that the potential cause is the electronic throttle system that has replaced mechanical systems in recent years.

A Times review of thousands of federal traffic safety incident reports found that complaints of sudden acceleration in many Toyota and Lexus vehicles shot up almost immediately after the automaker adopted the drive-by-wire system over the last decade. The electronic system uses sensors, microprocessors and electric motors, instead of a steel cable used in mechanical systems to connect the driver's foot to the engine. Reports of unintended acceleration increased more than fivefold for some Toyota models, after drive-by-wire systems were adopted.

Brian Lyons, Toyota spokesman, said the automaker could not explain the trend, but has consistently held that the electronic control systems are not to blame. Toyota released a statement this month saying,

'Six times in the past six years NHTSA has undertaken an exhaustive review of allegations of unintended acceleration on Toyota and Lexus vehicles. Six times the agency closed the investigation without finding any electronic engine control system malfunction to be the cause of unintended acceleration.'

In my opinion, Toyota's recall is focusing on the wrong problems. In January they plan to cut nearly an inch off the lower edge of the gas pedal and adjust the width to reduce the risk that the floor mat will become caught on the gas pedal. They will also install a brake override system meant to ensure that the engine will lose power if the brake and the accelerator are applied simultaneously, which will become standard on all Toyota and Lexus models by the end of next year. I hope that these adjustments will be enough to reduce the amount of accidents occurring from sudden acceleration. However, since there have been reports of sudden acceleration in cars that have removed their floor mats, I do not understand how changing the gas pedal will make a difference. I think that Toyota needs to do extensive research on the electronic throttle system in order to find the underlying problem causing these acceleration events.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Beth Janicek

Full post as published by San Antonio Personal Injury Lawyer on November 30, 2009 (boomark / email).