Page 93 - Toyota Under Fire

TOYOT A UNDER FIRE

The cursory details that began coming out after the crash
contributed to the fear and confusion. The Saylors had been driv-
ing a 2009 Lexus ES 350, the current model of a passenger car
whose all-weather floor mats had been recalled by Toyota in 2007
because of a possibility that they could trap the accelerator. In the
wild ride leading to the fatal accident, the brother-in law made a
911 call reporting that the accelerator pedal was stuck and that
the brakes had failed.*
It was easy to leap to conclusions from these sketchy de-
tails: either Toyota had failed to fix the floor mat problem in the
2007 recall, or something much more serious was wrong with
Toyota vehicles. To many people, the idea that a floor mat could
trap the accelerator was implausible. If the floor mat had caught
the pedal, why didn’t Mark Saylor simply use his foot to free the
pedal? Of course, there were additional questions: Why didn’t
Saylor just turn the car off? Couldn’t Saylor or the front seat pas-
senger have shifted the car into neutral?
The questions and suspicions about what had really hap-
pened in San Diego set the stage for a remarkable series of events
that ultimately proved to be the greatest threat to Toyota since the
company’s near-bankruptcy in 1950. Over the course of the next
six months, Toyota would issue three separate recalls related to
vehicle speed control that affected more than 7 million vehicles.
Along the way, Toyota would be accused by the media, politicians,
and customers of hiding information and putting lives at risk.
Some would even allege that defects in Toyota cars had led directly
to the deaths of more than 100 people over 10 years. The compa-
ny’s sterling reputation for quality and safety would be seriously

* You can hear the recording of the 911 call here: http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=KHGSWs4uJzY.

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