Runaway Toyota, Lexus complaints jump

• Source: Global Times
• [08:04 November 10 2009]
• Comments

Over 1,000 Toyota and Lexus owners have reported sudden, spontaneous acceleration of their vehicles since 2001, including crashes blamed for 19 deaths, far more than earlier disclosed, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) previously has said it had received reports of 100 such incidents, including 17 crashes and five fatalities.

But the Times said it had uncovered a problem much bigger in scope from its own examination of thousands of federal defect investigation records, NHTSA complaints filed by car owners, lawsuits against Toyota and reports by independent safety experts and local police agencies.

Owner complaints of runaway Toyota and Lexus vehicles helped trigger at least eight investigations by NHTSA in the last seven years, but the agency closed six of the cases without finding a defect, the Times said.

By its own count, the newspaper said it found more than 1,000 reports from motorists that their Toyota or Lexus vehicles had suddenly sped up on their own, and records of 19 fatalities in which unintended acceleration may have been a factor in vehicles going back to the 2002 model year.

Independent safety expert Sean Kane, president of Safety Research and Strategies, told the Times he has identified nearly 2,000 such cases.

"The NHTSA takes every allegation of safety problems seriously," the agency said in a statement to the Times. "In the case of complaints about sudden acceleration in Toyota vehicles, NHTSA moved very quickly to respond to them."

Toyota defended its vehicles and the validity of prior NHTSA investigations as "exhaustive."

"In each case, the agency closed the investigation without finding any electronic engine control system malfunction to be the cause of unintended acceleration," the company said in a statement to the Times.

Reuters