The American Transportation Secretary, Ray LaHood, handed down the results of a 10 month probe into whether Toyota’s electronics had flaws which caused the vehicles to speed out of control, as had been asserted by an army of US lawyers, left with nothing to do after silicone breast implants proved to be a furfy.
“The verdict is in. There is no electronic-based cause for unintended high-speed acceleration in Toyotas. Period,” Secretary LaHood said at a packed news conference at the Transportation Department’s headquarters. “Our conclusion is Toyota’s problems were mechanical, not electrical.”
Toyota
The 10 month probe conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and NASA narrowed the causes of runaway vehicles to mechanical issues such as sticking pedals and trapped floor mats, and to driver error – stepping on the gas, rather than the brake.
In examining the data, NHTSA and NASA reviewed more than 280,000 lines of software code for Toyota vehicles and even traveled to the Goddard Space Center for testing and to Chrysler’s Auburn Hills headquarters to bombard Toyota vehicles with electromagnetic radiation to see if was a factor in the unintended acceleration.
NASA was less categorical than LaHood, and in a fine display of scientific ass covering, stated that it was “theoretically possible” that two electronic faults could cause unintended acceleration under specific circumstances, but even NASA admitted that, “such an occurrence was highly unlikely in the real world.”
Steve St. Angelo, Toyota’s chief quality officer for North America, said he hoped the government’s findings would “help put to rest unsupported speculation” that unintended acceleration caused by electronics could occur. “We believe this rigorous scientific analysis by some of America’s foremost engineers should further reinforce confidence in the safety of Toyota and Lexus vehicles,” he said.
And whilst that should be the end of the saga, it is not, as there are many people who can smell money in all this, irrespective of the scientific findings. “They ignored cases they can’t explain,” said Sean Kane, president of Safety Research and Strategies, a private Massachusetts auto safety consultant. “We don’t think the story’s over – not by a long shot.”
“The issue is not going to go away just because they didn’t find anything,” said Jeremy Anwyl, CEO of an online automotive research company. “The fact that they couldn’t replicate unintended acceleration doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist, whatever the cause.” With logic like that, they will soon be claiming that the electronics are polluting the ozone layer with emissions that cannot be currently found. Or worse, causing giraffes to miscarry in sub-Saharan Africa.
The army of litigation lawyers will also not call a ceasefire against Toyota either, just because this study is negative. If some doubt exists, then the legal eagles will proceed, especially as nebulous claims of untraceable electronic malfunctions would make it that Toyota would find it nearly impossible to disprove. And by association, guilty!
