Harrison Police Exonerates Toyota: Definitely Pilot Error
At long last, police in Harrison, NY, agree with NHTSA findings that “driver error caused the crash of a Toyota Prius in this New York suburb,” says the Wall Street Journal. The converted Harrison police chief would even drive a Prius.
Capt. Anthony Marraccini, acting chief of the Harrison police, said there was no mechanical or electrical failure in the car: “The vehicle accelerator in this case was depressed 100 percent at the time of collision. There is absolutely no indication of any brake application.”
Marraccini was the last to come to this conclusion. Before, he had complained about NHTSA trampling on his turf, about Toyota not giving him their laptop, and refused to rule out driver error. Later, he said driver error was “a possibility.”
In the highly publicized case, a 56-year-old housekeeper had driven her employer’s 2005 Prius down the employer’s driveway, where, as she claimed, the Prius developed a mind of its own and sped up despite her braking. The car reached a top speed of 35 miles per hour during a short drive that ended across a busy street.
The car slammed into a stone wall at 27 mph. Car and wall were damaged, driver was not seriously hurt. Toyota’s reputation, at the time reeling from the James Sikes caper, took a damging hit.
Marraccini now did a 180 and said he believes that Toyota Prius cars are safe, says Reuters. “Quite honestly, I would have no reservations about putting my own family” in a Toyota Prius, Marraccini said.
In the much more dubious James Sikes case, the California Highway Patrol is leaving the question open, despite findings of the NHTSA and Toyota to the contrary.
Ever since the two cases went down in flames, and after police in Japan recommended that criminal charges are brought against a driver who claimed a brake failure had caused his Toyota Prius to crash into another car, reports of runaway Toyotas dropped precipitously.
Previous reports caused a mass hysteria, congressional hearings, a flood of class action suits, and recalls of more than 8m Toyotas worldwide.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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Pelosi must be in a real bitchy mood lately with all the news flying around about Toyota. "What do you mean Toyota sales are rebounding!!! Why haven't we put them out of business yet, we have 50 billion dollars invested in GM that we need to get back to pay for healthcare!!! REAW!!!
Even though Toyota has recalled millions of vehicles, the pedal issues have ONLY occurred on a few dozen vehicles. Sounds like Toyota is actually going above and beyond what most other Auto makers would do. There have been several million recalls by OTHER auto makers just in the last month. How much have you heard about them? Probably not much because everyone seems to be out to get Toyota. GM recalled over 1 million vehicles for a long running steering problem that has been going on for 4 years (why didn't GM do that recall sooner? must have been hiding something). Honda about a million between the Odessy van brake pedal and the shrapnel shooting airbags (those sound kind of serious also). Nissan has had a pretty large recall, and several other automakers. Wonder why these are not getting the same attention. And what about the car wash driver killed a couple of weeks ago by a claimed sudden unintended acceleration issue in NY? Oh, I guess since it was Chrysler Jeep Grand Cherokee, it wasn't news worthy. In fact, there have been so many SUA issues of the Grand Cherokee in car washes, many car wash operators will not drive them thru the wash. They push them through. And a safety group petitioned NHTSA to look into the Grand Cherokee SUA issue. But guess what.... NHTSA refused. Hmmmmmmmmmmm. Double standard? Government COI?