Page 117 - Toyota Under Fire

TOYOT A UNDER FIRE

These complaint levels were not particularly new—sud-
den acceleration complaints have been made at these levels for
decades. The only variation is in which manufacturer leads the
complaints. For instance, a later investigation of the data by
the NHTSA found that during the period from 2002 to 2009,
when it adjusted for volume of vehicles, Volvo actually had the
highest level of sudden acceleration complaints per 100,000 ve-
hicles; Toyota was second, and Ford was third. But if you look at
shorter time spans, sometimes Ford was the leader in sudden ac-
celeration complaints. On an annual basis, Volkswagen had the
most SUA complaints per 100,000 vehicles in 7 out of 10 years
between 2000 and 2009.* There are two conclusions to draw
from these figures: first, the complaint database does not clearly
establish Toyota as an outlier in terms of SUA, and second, SUA
claims are regularly made about all manufacturers, but in all cases
only as a very small percentage of vehicles on the road.

Forensic Investigations of SUA
Aside from the complaint database, before deciding that there
was good reason to suspect an underlying problem with Toyota
vehicles, you’d also have to consider the results of actual investiga-
tions of SUA. Given that SUA has been reported for many manu-
facturers for many years, the NHTSA has conducted a number
of investigations. One of the first of these investigations is known
as the Silver Book (simply because the cover of the report was
silver).† This comprehensive study of unintended acceleration
was commissioned after the Audi debacle. After a lengthy inves-
tigation, a panel of experts concluded that the vast majority of

* Based on data from NHTSA and Edmunds.com.
† NHTSA, “An Examination of Sudden Acceleration,” 1989, available at http://
www.autosafety.org/nhtsa-study-examination-sudden-acceleration-jan-1989.

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