Page 148 - Toyota Under Fire

THE RECALL CRISIS

scribed experiments he had run that allowed him to make Toyota
vehicles suddenly accelerate without the accelerator being de-
pressed and without triggering a fail-safe mode or setting a fault
code. He suggested that electromagnetic radiation in a real-world
situation could similarly cause a Toyota to accelerate in a way that
the fail-safe system would miss. Further, he claimed that this was
a problem that was unique to Toyota, a devastating accusation if
it were true.* We’ll take a look at Gilbert’s testing and what it ac-
tually revealed in Chapter 4.
Finally, Sean Kane summarized a report that his firm had
written about Toyota incidents based on the NHTSA com-
plaint database, which, as we have noted, is not a reliable source
of information. The report itself noted more than 2,000 alleged
incidents of SUA in Toyota vehicles, resulting in 815 crashes, 341
injuries, and 19 deaths since 1999.
Through all this testimony, the questions asked by congres-
sional delegates seemed to share the underlying assumption that
these were credible witnesses providing factual information. For
instance, only one member of the committee asked basic techni-
cal questions about Smith’s testimony, such as the lack of physical
evidence of some of her claims. Edward Niedermeyer, editor-in-
chief of The Truth about Cars, aptly explained the weakness of the
hearings:†

* David W. Gilbert, Ph.D., professor of automotive technology, Southern Il-
linois University, Carbondale, from Prepared Testimony for the Committee on
Energy and Commerce, Sub-Committee on Oversight Investigations, Toyota
Sudden Unintended Acceleration, February 23, 2010; energycommerce.house
.gov/Press_111/20100223/Gilbert.Testimony.pdf.
† Edward Niedermeyer, “The Toyota Testimony Day One,” The Truth about Cars,
February 24, 2010; http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2010/02/the-toyota
-testimony-day-one-a-comedy-in-three-parts-act-one-the-expert-evidence/.

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