Page 118 - Toyota Under Fire

THE RECALL CRISIS

complaints about sudden acceleration, especially those that hap-
pened at low initial speed (such as when pulling into or out of a
parking space), were attributable to pedal misapplication. An in-
tensive study by the NHTSA of speed-control complaints in Toy-
ota Camrys from model years 2002 to 2006, done in the summer
of 2010, found that 92 percent of the complaints and 96 per-
cent of the crashes were at speeds below 15 mph, characteristic
of pedal misapplication accidents, according to the Silver Book.*
Moreover, follow-up research on the issue of pedal misap-
plication subsequent to the Silver Book found incidents of pedal
misapplication to be far more common than previously be-
lieved.† Richard Schmidt, a professor of cognitive psychology at
UCLA and one of the lead authors of the Silver Book, conducted
detailed research on the North Carolina Police Accident Report
Database maintained by that state. The database includes the full
police report from any accident in the state for which a report
was filed. Schmidt and his colleagues began studying the data-
base in the mid-1990s, looking for evidence of accidents caused
by unintended acceleration. In that analysis, they found more
than 3,700 accidents over the period from 1979 to 1995 where
drivers admitted that pedal misapplication was the cause. That
averages out to more than 19 accidents per month just in the
state of North Carolina. Compare that figure to the average of 14
complaints about sudden acceleration in Toyotas across the entire

* NHTSA Informational Briefing for NASA, “Study of Electronic Vehicle Con-
trols and Unintended Acceleration,” June 30, 2010. These presentations can be
found at the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences
Web site: http://www.trb.org/PolicyStudies/UnintendedAcceleration Study.aspx.

† Richard Schmidt and Douglas Young, “Cars Gone Wild: The Major Con-
tributor to Unintended Acceleration in Automobiles Is Pedal Error,” Frontiers
in Psychology, November 25, 2010.

87