First Toyota Unintended Acceleration Wrongful Death Trial Begins

The car's Registered Owners own the EDRs and control who can touch them. However, Toyota owns the EDR 'scanners' for the cars in question and controls who can use them, meaning nobody except trained Toyota personnel. The court can order Toyota to scan an EDR, but Toyota will claim its stored data is unreliable, experimental and therefor inadmissible. And what if the Toyota tech 'accidentally' erases its memory? This might have changed on current cars and their EDR scanners may be available to anyone, but the EDRs (and their scanners) were not mandated equipment at the time. And the scanners for those years of Toyotas are still not available to the public, police or private investigators.

@DenverMike That's exactly right! Although we may own our cars outright, there are still many devices and circuitry that we as owners cannot decipher, decode, reset or alter. More worrisome is that with systems like OnStar et al, the vehicle (and the operator/driver) is monitored at all times the vehicle is in use, even if you do not subscribe to said service. The implications for misuse of this tracking and monitoring data is mind-boggling, yet the owner cannot erase, alter or read the system data without the factory algorithm. This is separate and away from the OBDII data which is used for vehicle diagnostics. Before very long, ALL vehicles will have the dreaded "black box" on board because it allows investigators to reconstruct exactly what happened leading up to an incident of any kind, down to the millisecond.

DenverMike- Good points, and "SUV" is a mythical phenomenon, btw! I once got a request from an Alaska Sheriff to read such data from a vehicle involved in a fatal crash. I had to track down how to get the data for him and was really surprised that we flew a technician to Alaska to pull it. Even though there was no allegation of a product defect, we did it to support the police investigation. They thought the driver had been going way too fast on a curve, if I recall correctly. We had to get the vehicle owner's approval, and I never learned the facts to protect privacy. It should be clear I am no Toyota fan, but I have always come to their defense on this topic. I have a long history in dealing with government, being rushed to Powertrain Engineering in 1988 to investigate and resolve another false allegation regarding a completely innocuous Oldsmobile cruise control servo fault that, at worst, could elevate the hot idle from 450 RPM to maybe 600RPM or so ! The guy who bought my house when I transferred coincidentally had the fault in a Buick B wagon. A plastic grommet could fall out of place and act as a shim to hold the throttle open very slightly above the idle position, dependent on how the cruise servo link adjustment, it could have absolutely zero effect. He was completely unaware of the failure and never would have noticed it. Still, NHTSA pushed us to release a Safety recall to install a different style grommet and retainer clip on 1.3million cars! They were scrambling to find SUV after the Audi fiasco. "Sudden Unintended Acceleration" is a fiction that media and NHTSA have tried to pin on car makers for years, never with any merit. It is always pedal misapplication. Always! What they did to Audi years ago was a crime, also. The lies presented on television with tricked cars to make the tires smoke on acceleration just about drove them out of the country. NHTSA would not even use the simple term, "driver error" insisting instead that reality be obscured with the label, "pedal misapplication", with not so much as an apology to Audi. @HDC- My right wing friends made much ado about nothing wrt On-star collecting data. They spun GM's interest in simply understanding macro information like driving patterns. mileage accumulation an usage schedules of the whole fleet into an invasion of individual privacy. On the other hand, the technology does open the door to abuse, even though controls are in place to protect privacy. The emissions agencies want you car to notify them if the Service Engine Soon Light comes on. So far, carmaker have fought that OBD III proposal off. With the BHO admin, one has to wonder how long they will be able to do so.

@doc olds - If Sudden Unintended Acceleration has been caused by computer glitch/fault/error, it can never be proven in that respect. That's what I understand about the what data/history computers will store, like past computer faults/errors. Except EDRs will store driver inputs history, or lack of. EDRs can prove/disprove SUA and yes it does exist, even it's no fault of the on board circuitry/software/hardware. We know that a few things other than a misplaced pedal application (or driver error) can cause, and have caused SUA. Linkages, butterflies or pedals can get stuck or the pedal simply trapped by the floor mat. That's when an OEM or dealer can be found liable and EDR info/data download useful. All of this is a reminder that we all need to be more familiar with the controls of the cars we drive. Even if a loaner car or rental. Most drivers I've questioned are unaware how easy it is to bump a shifter into Neutral. They're afraid of putting it into Reverse or "flipping". Crazy is right. And I'd say it's much better to "flip" at a good speed than crash (and flip) at 120+ MPH. Never mind simply turning the thing OFF. Oh yeah, they think the steering will Lock up if they turn it OFF. These are the things we should learn from all these sad cases.

@DenverMike- I am familiar with the argument about "computer glitches" as a cause, but discount to approximately zero probability. This is not just a hip shot. As a matter of fact,I studied microprocessors, controller software and calibration for my work, which ranged from developing service diagnostics, communicating data stream information to Scan tool makers and, for many years, monitoring product performance in consumer's hands in these areas. Earlier in my career, I investigated a number of SUA allegations as well. No doubt, you touch on things that can cause a throttle to stick open, or fail to return to idle, but that is NOT SUA. SUA means the vehicle spontaneously, without driver input, moves the throttle wide open. There is no case in history for any car maker of that actually being caused by anything other than pedal misapplication. Misinformation abounds. Drilling holes between hydraulic passages inside transmissions (a la early the Audi "hit job") or connecting wires to create circuits that can't actually exist in any real world failure mode, as was hypothesized in the recent Toyota case are red herrings. The responsible Engineers who design such systems understand all of these details in microscopic detail with profound knowledge and with default responses to assure they are not possible. Massive resources were focused on Toyota with the goal being to prove the "glitch" theory and came up completely empty, again with every NHTSA investigation ever.

@DenverMike I remember the concerted efforts by the DOT and the US Congress to discredit Toyota and its products, and Ray LaHood's proclamation, "We're not done with Toyota". All for naught, because it was all based on lies and deceit. And then there were the efforts of the lying Press to show how Toyota cars could 'run' away, in staged events that were repeats of the same lies from decades ago. As a recent (2008) convert to Toyota, I would much rather put my money on a Toyota-engineered product. The case in discussion is about a woman who got hit and lost control of her car. There are numerous ways to lose control of one's car, even while conscious. Like by stepping on the gas pedal instead of the brake. Obviously, she did not have the presence of mind to put the transmission in neutral, or may have been semi-conscious or unconscious. In spite of all this, Toyota will settle and make her survivors and beneficiaries instant millionaires, (not to mention her lawyers) and we, the buying public will pay the increased prices of future Toyota products. Only in America! Money for nuttin'. Foodstamps and cellphones for free.

@DenverMike Do you think any of the recalls were justified? Do you think the State Highway patrolman and his family who died in a Lexus due to a incorrectly positioned floormat are at fault? Never heard of a floormat from another company causing a fatal accident. You have a limited imagination if you think the US is alone or even leading in giving free "stuff" to citizens (who may pay other taxes than just income tax) - look at Canada or any European country.

@Doc olds - I'm not questioning whether the 'glitches' theory is a hoax or a witch hunt, but the EDR can tell us if there was zero application of the gas pedal while the brakes were full depressed. Otherwise, there's no reason for Toyota to suppress or hold back evidence. Not that any car can accelerate on its own, but a stuck throttle component can hold at WOT just he same. And at no fault of the driver.