Page 122 - Toyota Under Fire

THE RECALL CRISIS

headlined, “Runaway Toyota Cases Ignored.” What the news sto-
ries failed to dig into was the underlying reasons for ignoring most
complaints filed with the NHTSA that we’ve noted—the content
of the complaint is highly suspect, and there is no supporting evi-
dence to back up the claims of the person who is making the report.
The reporting provided fertile ground for the stories to run out
of control. There’s a well-documented history of highly publicized
events, like UFO sightings, leading to a wave of similar com-
plaints, and this phenomenon was clearly evident in the Toyota
case.* Once the speculation about electronics, or any other Toy-
ota recall issue, was highly publicized, complaints alleging the issue
in question skyrocketed. As a result, the NHTSA database became
even less useful. For instance, the NHTSA database includes 11 re-
ports of fatal accidents in Toyotas where the driver alleged unin-
tended acceleration in the period from 2000 to October 2009. After
the Toyota recalls and intense media coverage, from October 2009
to June 2010, there were 64 more cases reported. In the June 30,
2009 NHTSA briefing, about 1,300 UA complaints were reported
for Toyota vehicles for the nine years through October of 2009,
and then a jump to almost 2,500 UA complaints for the next nine
months.† With the deluge of daily media reports of sudden accel-
eration of Toyotas (rarely qualified with “alleged”), it is not surpris-
ing that complaints snowballed. For example, in February 2010,
Prius speed control complaints were up 13 times compared to
January, according to an Associated Press analysis of the NHTSA
database. Because of this snowball effect, the NHTSA notes that
reports after October 2009 aren’t reliable indicators of a trend.

* For examples, see Allan J. Kimmel, Rumors and Rumor Control (New York:
Routledge Press, 2003).
† NHTSA Informational Briefing, ibid.

91