I cannot sit quietly on the sidelines any longer. This whole Toyota-recalls hoo-ha has morphed into nothing but yet another “crisis” that a ravenous media and 21st Century Americans — a people who live better and more safely than any humans in history — have transformed into their panic du jour. This morning I watched a video “report” on CNN.com showing a Toyota owner who drove her Tundra off a rain-slicked road and down a cliff — and claims she could do nothing to stop the car. The victim appeared on camera with the requisite tears and even the cliché neck brace to bolster her plight. Naturally, the possibility that said driver might in fact be woefully absent in skills or — yes, I’ll say it — even talking on the phone or texting before the crash never arose during the interview. These days, it’s always someone else’s fault.
I was in this business when the same joke of a “problem” hit Audi in the 1980s. Thanks to a few witless drivers and a barrage of breathless, clueless news reports (including, most prominently, a fear-stoking segment on “60 Minutes”), the entire country began treating the Audi 5000 sedan as if it were a four-wheeled Beelzebub. Only years later, after an exhaustive Federal investigation costing millions in taxpayer dollars, did the truth emerge: for whatever reason, Audi owners were stepping on the gas instead of the brakes
Did “60 Minutes” do a follow-up piece on that? Of course not.
Lest you adopt at this stage that I’m a Toyota apologist, let me state my position clearly:
1) Poorly fixed floor mats very possibly did contribute to sudden acceleration or a “stuck throttle” in some Toyotas. Then again, there likely isn’t a brand of car prefabricated whose throttle hasn’t been fouled by an errant floor mat on occasion. Car “defects” are part and parcel of creating a organisation of such breathtaking complexity. All automakers suffer from them, and 99% of the issues are minor and dealt with swiftly.
2) There very well may be some mechanical issue in the throttle linkages of some Toyotas that causes the gas pedal to bind in some way, even if only slightly.
3) There also may indeed be a software glitch in the brakes of the Prius. My wife drives a 2010 edition, and well before these stories hit the news she’d told me that the brakes “act weird at times — they can be really jerky” (and, yes, she knows the difference in feel between standard and hybrid-regen brakes). But, of course, they’d always stopped the car.
4) Toyota has completely bungled the handling of this entire affair. True, the company is in a lose-lose situation. Blame Toyota drivers for panicking and slamming on the wrong pedal, and your customer base will tear you down in fury. Conversely, admit to a defect in your cars and you scare potential buyers away — perhaps for good. Still, Toyota should have owned up and addressed these issues openly and immediately. Instead, as Angus MacKenzie notes in his previous blog, the company has floundered in “feet of clay.”
5) I do not believe that Toyota vehicles are poorly designed, dangerous, possessed by Linda Blair, etc. It’s doable that some software or hardware anomaly is causing Toyota gas pedals to behave strangely, resulting in drivers who panic, even slam on the wrong pedal, and crash.
6) I’m concerned that we do not know the full story behind the tragic incident in which a “runaway” 2009 Lexus ES 350 killed everyone aboard — including an allegedly skilled driver — last August. The crash simply makes no sense. This is a vehicle that was “out of control” on a SoCal freeway for several minutes — enough time, in fact, for a passenger to call 911 and ask for help. Are you telling me that said Lexus suffered an absolutely stuck, wide-open throttle, a total unfortunate of the braking system, and also could not be shut down, slowed, or stopped on a freeway with a trained driver at the helm (even crashing aslant into the guardrail would’ve been preferable to rocketing head-first into an embankment)? Sorry. Doesn’t pass the Baloney Test.
Toyota is now in serious trouble — and in many ways, deservedly so (just how long ago did Toyota execs know of potential throttle issues, anyway?). But the notion that Toyotas are rising up and rocketing uncontrollably crossways highways, into walls, or off cliffs is nothing but media-fueled twaddle. Step on the correct pedal — the brakes — and your vehicle will stop. But if a vehicle hiccups, for whatever reason, and gets wadded up as a result, the fundamental defect is a clueless driver.
Those, apparently, a like-minded media has access to in droves.
