Personal Injury Law

Toyota President apologetic after being questioned by Congress

By Ryan Bradley, Esq.

Members of the United States Congress held two days worth of hearings this week that including a question session for the head of Toyota, Akio Toyoda.

The Federal Government has gotten involved in investigating the vehicle manufacturer after thousands of reports of potentially dangerous vehicle defects leading to instances where Toyota vehicles have accelerated uncontrollably. As many as 39 deaths have been reportedly linked to the acceleration problem.

In the question session, Toyoda was apologetic and sorry for any accident that Toyota owners have had. He even admitted that some problems may have arisen because of the company's extraordinarily rapid growth over the last decade.

Toyota is Japan's largest company and also the world's largest automaker.

Toyoda refuted the claim that electronic system errors in Toyota vehicles were to blame for any of the fatal car accidents. When reports of the sudden acceleration problem first became national news, the company blamed misplaced floor mats that caught on the accelerator. As the months wore on and reports from all over the country began to stream in, the automaker expanded its recalls and admitted that part of the accelerator mechanism itself was the problem. Now, as the company has recalled nearly 10 million vehicles, concerns are arising that the computer systems that help control cruise control and other vital operations are faulty.

Hopefully investigators can get to the cause of all these incidents before we have more serious crashes. Toyota also needs to be held accountable if they knew about potential problems and didn't act to fix them before people were hurt or killed. When a company negligently sells a dangerous product, it falls under the area of product liability law. If you believe that you have been injured by a dangerous product defect, you should consult a personal injury attorney as soon as possible.

Full post as published by Missouri Accident Lawyer Blog on February 25, 2010 (boomark / email).