Surprise! Toyota Wins Unintended Acceleration Sweepstakes

Edward Niedermeyer
by Edward Niedermeyer

We thought we’d seen the last of the unintended acceleration crazes come and go for good nearly two decades ago. We were wrong. Somehow, like Camaros, Chrysler bailouts and Whitney Houston, the phenomenon has clawed its way back into the American consciousness this year. Consumer Reports even devotes an entire study to the number of unintended acceleration complaints lodged against the 2008 model-year with the NHTSA. Unsurprisingly, the big winner was Toyota, with 41 percent of the complaints, Ford came in second with 28 percent while Chrysler had nine percent. But wait, how many cases were there in total? Only 166? So, of the 2.2m vehicles Toyota sold in 2008, a total of 52 complaints were lodged about a phenomenon with no good mechanical explanation… and Consumer Reports wants us to believe that this is statistically significant?

CR writes:

Toyota has announced several steps it is taking to mitigate the risks of floor-mat entrapment and provide “smart throttle” technology (allowing the brake pedal to override the accelerator), but our analysis indicates other problems likely exist.

Hey, same here. Only our analysis says that unintended acceleration is caused by stupid drivers, a problem that no number of gizmos will ever fix. But rather than call it like it is, CR is using their study to scare folks with the prospect that their Toyota might just become possessed by some mysterious force and kill everything in its path. “It looks like the problem may be beyond floor mats,” CR’s Jeff Bartlett tells the LA Times, which in turn shamelessly propagates the allegedly mystery behind unintended acceleration. Instead of scaremongering, CR should take off the tin foil chapeau and try demonstrating some kind of causality behind this phantom menace. Or better yet, they should help remind people that cars don’t unintentionally accelerate, people do.

Edward Niedermeyer
Edward Niedermeyer

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  • Steven02 Steven02 on Dec 08, 2009

    For a site that calls itself the truth about cars and desires journalist integrity, why assume that Toyota is not at fault here? Why post a story about how another driver of the same vehicle was able to deal with it in the title instead of dealer warned about this issue on the car that killed people? Why not give Toyota some scrutiny on this issue? I can only imagine the stories had it been a GM vehicle with this problem.

  • Cleek Cleek on Dec 09, 2009

    Most auto safety features are there to address the failings of drivers. Offering "smart throttle", etc. is just plain sensible. It is certainly a more useful investment than the legalese that gets printed warning folks off of the obvious.

  • Dukeisduke Womp womp.
  • FreedMike China's whining about unfair trade practices? Okay.
  • Kwik_Shift Hyunkia'sis doing what they do best...subverting expectations of quality.
  • MaintenanceCosts People who don't use the parking brake when they walk away from the car deserve to have the car roll into a river.
  • 3-On-The-Tree I’m sure they are good vehicles but you can’t base that on who is buying them. Land Rovers, Bentley’ are bought by Robin Leaches’s “The Rich and Famous” but they have terrible reliability.
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