Can’t imagine the fear created by a floor mat that traps the gas pedal and causes the car to speed out of control. Obviously, the floor mat has a mind of its own preventing the driver from physically moving it away from the pedal. Scary…
After a six-hour investigation by an independent panel of experts, two of which had formerly been dog catchers for the city of Dresden Germany and a third who had been a toll collector on the Trans Siberian Highway, Toyota released the following statement:
“How dey get dat car to go so fast? We tink dey mess wit onboard computer – onry component made in Amellica. We onry design dis car to go 85 mires per hour. It definetry NOT us what made dat car have probrems”.
With all due respect, the guy in the Prius should not be driving a car if he doesn’t know what to do if the throttle sticks for any reason. The tinker toy powerplant in the Prius in no way could overpower the brakes.
Maybe the throttle stuck- maybe it didn’t but that’s not my point. ANY car will stop if you mash on the brakes hard and don’t let up.
I have demonstrated this to three of my friends now- On an empty stretch of road I run my Pontiac GTP up to 80 mph or so, floor the accelerator and keep it pinned to the floor, and press the brake pedal hard with my left foot. The car stops albeit with hot stinky brakes. Slipping the car into neutral makes stopping even easier.
I am very sorry that Toyota drivers and passengers have been hurt and/or killed but cars cannot suffer demonic possession. The media who are reveling in this story are the same ones that beleived that a small boy was riding INSIDE an 8 foot helium balloon.
I have a hard time believing that the car would not stop with the brakes. Any car will stop with brakes to the floor. Sounds like this guy wants to get a big piece of toyota……and of course–it happened in CA so Toyota might as well just stroke that check……
I’m no engineer but I believe there is a difference with how the brakes work when the gas pedal is depressed between a Toyota vs. GM. The American cars have an override feature that allows the brakes to “over power” the acceleration. Toyotas do not. Water bug – try the same scenario with a Toyota and let me know how it turns out.
By the way, anybody want to buy my Prius?
There is no difference between the operation of GM brakes and Toyota brakes.There is no such thing as an over rider device that allows GM cars to stop with the throttle wide open.
Auto technology is my area of expertise and has been so for over 26 years.
Speaking of GM, its interesting that since GM became Govt Motors and the big sale of Toyotas during the Cash for Clunkers debacle, that Toyota became a government target. If the mainstream media punishes Toyota to the extent they praised Obama in 2008, Obama may have to bail them out to.
Because many members of congress are too ill-informed to make good decisions.
Instead they just make knee jerk reactions to the emotionally charged headlines du jour.
I would venture that “sudden acceleration” is human error- like most auto and aviation accidents, the human behind the controls is typically the piece of equipment that failed.
My accelerator got stuck in the open position on the highway. Some animal burrowed up in the hood and stored a bunch of fruit there probably because it was warm in the winter. The throttle opened and fruit dropped in leaving it on full open. I knew to pop the car into neutral and coast off the highway and onto a shoulder. Naturally, I should sue GM for building an unsafe vehicle?
Underryder-
I have done this with my 2004 toyota Sienna van. The car will stop. The brakes will override the acceleration even though there is no computer “kill” for the accelerator like GM, Chrysler and Ford. Yes it takes longer but I have to aggree with the others some of this is drive panic and some is trying to jump on the perverbial money train that this has become.. Anyone remember when Audi had a similar problem????
Water Bug..
Better check your facts on this… I believe you will find that the computer does in fact have a program that will defer(override the request for acceleration )to the brakes when both the gas and brakes are used at the same time. this is the override feature that the Gov’ment is talking about. All Domestic Nfg’s have this feature. If not, all the powertrain engineers in my neighborhood here in Detroit are lying to me..
Aftering listening to a long radio interview by a newspaper writer reporting on the big coverup at Toyota and all the 1,000’s of pages that the government found regarding their coverup, I found it very interesting to learn that the newspaper columnist was from the Detroit Free Press!!
I’m more amazed Toyota doesn’t put a neutral in any of these cars. I would think that would as effective as calling your husband on your cell phone and praying.
I’ve had 2 incidents of unintended acceleration in my life…one in a fairly new ’86 or ’87 Audi that was literally a non-event…the car lurched about 5′ as I came up to the sidewalk exiting a tire shop. (That became a real issue for Audi…and a textbook example of how NOT to handle a crisis.) I just braked to a stop…but it might have been interesting if there had been a pedestrian there. The other was on a then new Chevy Caprice when an engine mount broke while turning and the engine position forced the throttle to open up in SF. I wasn’t driving(wife was)I just reached over and turned off the ignition…end of story. Chevy later recalled them to replace the mounts. Last week I wondered what would happen if I tried that with a current Infiniti M45 Sport…no key. I got it up to a reasonable speed on a straight road and just hit the ignition button while leaving my foot on the gas…then punched the ignition off…and punched it again…then again…and finally the engine shut off. It took maybe 5 secs. I’m going to try it later at a higher speed to see how hard the steering becomes, as I’ve lost power steering before and it isn’t fun on some cars.
Someday power steering and brakes will be electric and even dead stick there will still be both…if the battery is OK.
Hey – you Toyota homies who were still talking about how great their products are just last week – what do you say to this?
Toyota will be fortunate to survive. I will never buy a Toyota product, new or used. How do I know it won’t go crazy? They have a decade of bad cars out there!
The mysterious throttle over ride device that Congress wants to mandate would apply only to vehicles with “fly by wire” throttles where there is no mechanical connection between the gas pedal and the engine throttle. My Pontiac has a cable connected to the gas pedal, not an electronic sensor that measures the angle of the pedal. There is no over ride device on my car.
In the 80’s there was indeed an inquiry into unintended acceleration on Audi 5000’s. CBS’s 60 Minutes program did a feature on the problem and showed an Audi accelerating out of control. What they failed to mention was that they had sabotaged the cruise control AND the brakes to make this possible. It was years later that CBS finally confessed to the deception.
It’s kind of like the hoo ha over side saddle gas tanks on Chevrolet and GMC pickup trucks. NBC did a feature on these trucks in the 90’s and they staged a collision in which a GMC truck was hit in the side by another vehicle. NBC expected a spectacular explosion but nothing much happened. The did several more collisions with similar results. Finally they put explosives in the GMC truck and finally they got a fireball. Of course, the viewing audience wasn’t privy to how NBC cheated. Eventually NBC had to apologize for lying to the public.
The fact remains that the brakes, with or without a magical over ride device, will stop the car if applied firmly.
I’ll mention again that I don’t work for or own a Toyota. I regard their product line as boring but safe and reliable.
The nut that holds the steering wheel is dangerous and prone to failure. Quality control is difficult, if not unattainable.
You need to re-engineer the nut to get the uniform and safe results you desire. I think governments around your planet are working on various solutions right now.
That California driver is a perfect example. Wonder what he will do when mustard from his tofu dog drips on his blue Hawaiian shirt. Will he run around like Patrick on Sponge Bob Squarepants until he runs into an obstacle & falls over? Then the tofu dogs would have to be recalled, along with the buns. MSDS for the mustard, etc. Design defects galore!
I hope everyone has been following the most recent developments in this scam. The guy with the Prius now has as much credibility as the parents of the balloon boy. Toyota should sue this idiot.
And what happens when the cars with the replaced pedals present the same symptoms again? I’m guessing that Toyota will recommend swapping out the drivers’ real legs with prosthetics, because they seem loathe to admit that there could be a problem with the electrical/computer controls for the throttle system.
Here has been the over all BIG GAME PLAN…
The more I write this the more believable it is becoming?
This seems more real all the time… Is it possible to try to ruin America and take over Automotive Manufacturing markets with fraud?
Toyota Marketing Ponzi…?
1 Build Cars
2. Get inside the magazines and Consumer guides to make sure you have the EDGE?. above post indication of suspect ratings?? Paid Consumer Guides Off. Ex . How is Prius Top pick?
3. Hire NHTSA people to back up the IMAGE OF QUALITY? They did this?
4. Take care of all safety issues at Dealer level with TSB’s, secret recalls paid on warranty tickets. Blame driver error for everything. Charge to Warranty repairs..? They do this?
5. Use consumer satisfaction surveys to determine who the biggest customer liabilities are…. make them go away? They do this?
6. They become to big to handle their Legal division will step in…. If the case is too tough, settle it, so no Image problems exist. They have to sign confidentiality agreements not to talk. Image protected and growing.. What a plan? They did this?
7. Demetrious Biller…. Whistle blower of the huge International Business Terrorism ? He is their Ex Attorney that will be at the Congressional Hearings and will explain that part of the FRAUD?
8. Game over…!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is Starting to unravel ? Watch
This is happening right before our eyes.
This is how you gain market share by hiding RECALLS……
The Audit — February 24, 2010 12:00 PM
What’s a Toyota “Exclusive?” at This Point?
Bloomberg pushes the definition
By Dean Starkman
Single PagePrintEmailCommentsDigg Facebook Reddit StumbleUpon Delicious What is an exclusive, anyway?
This is more than journalism competition issue. As readers sort through the news gusher, it’s getting harder than ever to figure out what the new news is.
The Toyota story is a perfect illustration. The carmaker is caught squarely in a global media storm and has been for weeks. Any business news outlet worthy of the name is competing to advance this story, even a little bit. Put it this way, Factiva finds 1,558 Toyota stories—today.
On February 13, Bloomberg ran a story tagged “exclusive” under this headline:
Regulators Hired by Toyota Helped Halt Acceleration Probes
Actually, nothing in the headline is exclusive at all.
And you’d really have to squint to find anything exclusive in the story, which starts this way:
Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) — At least four, U.S. investigations into unintended acceleration by Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles were ended with the help of former regulators hired by the automaker, warding off possible recalls, court and government records show.
Christopher Tinto, vice president of regulatory affairs in Toyota’s Washington office, and Christopher Santucci, who works for Tinto, helped persuade the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to end probes including those of 2002-2003 Toyota Camrys and Solaras, court documents show. Both men joined Toyota directly from NHTSA, Tinto in 1994 and Santucci in 2003.
A reader complained to Bloomberg, and copied me in, pointing out that Reuters had already found Santucci three days before, on February 10:
In one case Chris Santucci, a former U.S. safety regulator hired by Toyota in 2003, played a role in discussions with NHTSA during a 2004 probe in which the agency sharply narrowed the scope of its inquiry, according to his deposition in a lawsuit seeking damages from the Michigan crash.
A couple days earlier, on Feb. 8, The Wall Street Journal, had already found both Santucci and his current boss, Tinto.
NHTSA officials worked on the probe with their main contact at Toyota, Christopher Santucci. The NHTSA team knew Mr. Santucci: He had worked there from 2001 to 2003. Mr. Santucci’s supervisor at Toyota, Mr. Tinto, had worked at NHTSA in the past, too. Messrs. Santucci and Tinto didn’t respond to requests for comment.
This Associated Press story the same day named Tinto, though not Santucci:
Its main liaison to the federal government on vehicle safety issues is Christopher Tinto, who worked for several years in NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation as a vehicle defect investigator and in its Office of Vehicle Safety Standards, where he mostly worked on heavy-truck braking standards.
And before that, on February 4, ABC News had reported, in “Revolving Door: From US Safety Agency to Toyota Representative,” on Santucci meeting a former colleague:
Scott Yon, met with two former NHTSA colleagues who worked for Toyota, including Chris Santucci, who had left the agency only six months earlier, according to his testimony in a civil lawsuit.
Which of the above news organizations broke the Toyota/NHTSA story? None of them. As I’ve written, everyone here is following The Los Angeles Times, which started its reporting back in October.
It had a Santucci sighting on Dec. 31
When attorney Edgar Heiskell went to a Washington law office this month to depose a Toyota Motor Corp. executive, he said he was met by a virtual NHTSA alumni club now working for Toyota. It included at least two former agency attorneys and former defects investigator Christopher Santucci.
In the deposition, Santucci said he negotiated a job with Toyota while he was still employed at NHTSA and gave the agency two to three weeks’ notice.
And the NHTSA reporting goes back further. This from November 8:
Federal officials eliminated broad categories of sudden-acceleration complaints, including cases in which drivers said they were unable to stop runaway cars using their brakes; incidents of unintended acceleration lasting more than a few seconds; and reports in which owners did not identify the possible causes of the problem.
NHTSA officials used the exclusions as part of their rationale to close at least five of the investigations without finding any defect, because — with fewer incidents to consider — the agency concluded there were not enough reported problems to warrant further inquiry. In a 2003 Lexus probe, for example, the agency threw out all but one of 37 customer complaints cited in a defect petition. It then halted further investigation, saying it “found no data indicating the existence of a defect trend.”
Meanwhile, fatal crashes involving Toyota vehicles continued to mount.
But, this is not about credit, believe me. For one thing, plaintiffs’ lawyers had known about Toyota’s problems for years, but that’s another column.
Joe Winksi, who heads Bloomberg’s regulatory coverage, said in a note to the reader and me, that the wire advanced the story on a couple of key points: the specific number of probes the ex-NHTSA people hindered and the fact that other major carmakers don’t employ ex-NHTSA people the same way:
Bloomberg News was the first to show the public that Toyota is the only carmaker who currently employs former NHTSA employees to help it deal with that agency on defect issues. We also were the first to determine and show the public the specific number of investigations such personnel helped quash, which shows the scope of this constantly unfolding story. Bloomberg’s policy is to always credit prior scoops by other news organizations. Our exclusive showed new facts in this continuing story. We take your comments seriously and will update our “exclusive” tag to better show readers where we succeeded.
He adds to me, “We recognize that defining an ‘exclusive’ isn’t always a clear-cut thing and that we welcome [the reader’s] comments on the matter.”
Fair enough. A few thoughts:
First, it’s good for news organizations to compete ferociously for news and to advance investigations that are already underway.
Second, there’s nothing sacrosanct about the word “exclusive.”
Third, the Bloomberg story is a good, strong story. There’s nothing wrong with it.
Can’t imagine the fear created by a floor mat that traps the gas pedal and causes the car to speed out of control. Obviously, the floor mat has a mind of its own preventing the driver from physically moving it away from the pedal. Scary…
After a six-hour investigation by an independent panel of experts, two of which had formerly been dog catchers for the city of Dresden Germany and a third who had been a toll collector on the Trans Siberian Highway, Toyota released the following statement:
“How dey get dat car to go so fast? We tink dey mess wit onboard computer – onry component made in Amellica. We onry design dis car to go 85 mires per hour. It definetry NOT us what made dat car have probrems”.
With all due respect, the guy in the Prius should not be driving a car if he doesn’t know what to do if the throttle sticks for any reason. The tinker toy powerplant in the Prius in no way could overpower the brakes.
Maybe the throttle stuck- maybe it didn’t but that’s not my point. ANY car will stop if you mash on the brakes hard and don’t let up.
I have demonstrated this to three of my friends now- On an empty stretch of road I run my Pontiac GTP up to 80 mph or so, floor the accelerator and keep it pinned to the floor, and press the brake pedal hard with my left foot. The car stops albeit with hot stinky brakes. Slipping the car into neutral makes stopping even easier.
I am very sorry that Toyota drivers and passengers have been hurt and/or killed but cars cannot suffer demonic possession. The media who are reveling in this story are the same ones that beleived that a small boy was riding INSIDE an 8 foot helium balloon.
I have a hard time believing that the car would not stop with the brakes. Any car will stop with brakes to the floor. Sounds like this guy wants to get a big piece of toyota……and of course–it happened in CA so Toyota might as well just stroke that check……
I’m no engineer but I believe there is a difference with how the brakes work when the gas pedal is depressed between a Toyota vs. GM. The American cars have an override feature that allows the brakes to “over power” the acceleration. Toyotas do not. Water bug – try the same scenario with a Toyota and let me know how it turns out.
By the way, anybody want to buy my Prius?
Hey Underryder-
There is no difference between the operation of GM brakes and Toyota brakes.There is no such thing as an over rider device that allows GM cars to stop with the throttle wide open.
Auto technology is my area of expertise and has been so for over 26 years.
My advice to you is to keep your Prius.
Speaking of GM, its interesting that since GM became Govt Motors and the big sale of Toyotas during the Cash for Clunkers debacle, that Toyota became a government target. If the mainstream media punishes Toyota to the extent they praised Obama in 2008, Obama may have to bail them out to.
Water Bug
So why is the administration contemplating making all autos have an override system?
“Goverment weighs requiring brake overrides”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35659830/ns/business-autos/
Again, I’m no expert, just trying to understand.
Why is the gov’t requiring (fill in the blank)?
Because many members of congress are too ill-informed to make good decisions.
Instead they just make knee jerk reactions to the emotionally charged headlines du jour.
I would venture that “sudden acceleration” is human error- like most auto and aviation accidents, the human behind the controls is typically the piece of equipment that failed.
How do you get a Prius up to 90 mph anyway? And on a San Diego freeway? fugedaboutit.
30 miles in 20 minutes on a San Diego freeway, in a Prius? Who does he think he’s kidding?
And, if you’re on the freeway and don’t have to make any hard turns, why not just shut the engine off?
My accelerator got stuck in the open position on the highway. Some animal burrowed up in the hood and stored a bunch of fruit there probably because it was warm in the winter. The throttle opened and fruit dropped in leaving it on full open. I knew to pop the car into neutral and coast off the highway and onto a shoulder. Naturally, I should sue GM for building an unsafe vehicle?
Underryder-
I have done this with my 2004 toyota Sienna van. The car will stop. The brakes will override the acceleration even though there is no computer “kill” for the accelerator like GM, Chrysler and Ford. Yes it takes longer but I have to aggree with the others some of this is drive panic and some is trying to jump on the perverbial money train that this has become.. Anyone remember when Audi had a similar problem????
Water Bug..
Better check your facts on this… I believe you will find that the computer does in fact have a program that will defer(override the request for acceleration )to the brakes when both the gas and brakes are used at the same time. this is the override feature that the Gov’ment is talking about. All Domestic Nfg’s have this feature. If not, all the powertrain engineers in my neighborhood here in Detroit are lying to me..
Nugget,
I agree. Sounds like an ID-10-T error. Oh yeah, he is from California. Enough said!
Aftering listening to a long radio interview by a newspaper writer reporting on the big coverup at Toyota and all the 1,000’s of pages that the government found regarding their coverup, I found it very interesting to learn that the newspaper columnist was from the Detroit Free Press!!
I’m more amazed Toyota doesn’t put a neutral in any of these cars. I would think that would as effective as calling your husband on your cell phone and praying.
I’ve had 2 incidents of unintended acceleration in my life…one in a fairly new ’86 or ’87 Audi that was literally a non-event…the car lurched about 5′ as I came up to the sidewalk exiting a tire shop. (That became a real issue for Audi…and a textbook example of how NOT to handle a crisis.) I just braked to a stop…but it might have been interesting if there had been a pedestrian there. The other was on a then new Chevy Caprice when an engine mount broke while turning and the engine position forced the throttle to open up in SF. I wasn’t driving(wife was)I just reached over and turned off the ignition…end of story. Chevy later recalled them to replace the mounts. Last week I wondered what would happen if I tried that with a current Infiniti M45 Sport…no key. I got it up to a reasonable speed on a straight road and just hit the ignition button while leaving my foot on the gas…then punched the ignition off…and punched it again…then again…and finally the engine shut off. It took maybe 5 secs. I’m going to try it later at a higher speed to see how hard the steering becomes, as I’ve lost power steering before and it isn’t fun on some cars.
Someday power steering and brakes will be electric and even dead stick there will still be both…if the battery is OK.
Hey – you Toyota homies who were still talking about how great their products are just last week – what do you say to this?
Toyota will be fortunate to survive. I will never buy a Toyota product, new or used. How do I know it won’t go crazy? They have a decade of bad cars out there!
Note to Underryder-
The mysterious throttle over ride device that Congress wants to mandate would apply only to vehicles with “fly by wire” throttles where there is no mechanical connection between the gas pedal and the engine throttle. My Pontiac has a cable connected to the gas pedal, not an electronic sensor that measures the angle of the pedal. There is no over ride device on my car.
In the 80’s there was indeed an inquiry into unintended acceleration on Audi 5000’s. CBS’s 60 Minutes program did a feature on the problem and showed an Audi accelerating out of control. What they failed to mention was that they had sabotaged the cruise control AND the brakes to make this possible. It was years later that CBS finally confessed to the deception.
It’s kind of like the hoo ha over side saddle gas tanks on Chevrolet and GMC pickup trucks. NBC did a feature on these trucks in the 90’s and they staged a collision in which a GMC truck was hit in the side by another vehicle. NBC expected a spectacular explosion but nothing much happened. The did several more collisions with similar results. Finally they put explosives in the GMC truck and finally they got a fireball. Of course, the viewing audience wasn’t privy to how NBC cheated. Eventually NBC had to apologize for lying to the public.
The fact remains that the brakes, with or without a magical over ride device, will stop the car if applied firmly.
I’ll mention again that I don’t work for or own a Toyota. I regard their product line as boring but safe and reliable.
The nut that holds the steering wheel is dangerous and prone to failure. Quality control is difficult, if not unattainable.
You need to re-engineer the nut to get the uniform and safe results you desire. I think governments around your planet are working on various solutions right now.
That California driver is a perfect example. Wonder what he will do when mustard from his tofu dog drips on his blue Hawaiian shirt. Will he run around like Patrick on Sponge Bob Squarepants until he runs into an obstacle & falls over? Then the tofu dogs would have to be recalled, along with the buns. MSDS for the mustard, etc. Design defects galore!
I hope everyone has been following the most recent developments in this scam. The guy with the Prius now has as much credibility as the parents of the balloon boy. Toyota should sue this idiot.
And what happens when the cars with the replaced pedals present the same symptoms again? I’m guessing that Toyota will recommend swapping out the drivers’ real legs with prosthetics, because they seem loathe to admit that there could be a problem with the electrical/computer controls for the throttle system.
Here has been the over all BIG GAME PLAN…
The more I write this the more believable it is becoming?
This seems more real all the time… Is it possible to try to ruin America and take over Automotive Manufacturing markets with fraud?
Toyota Marketing Ponzi…?
1 Build Cars
2. Get inside the magazines and Consumer guides to make sure you have the EDGE?. above post indication of suspect ratings?? Paid Consumer Guides Off. Ex . How is Prius Top pick?
3. Hire NHTSA people to back up the IMAGE OF QUALITY? They did this?
4. Take care of all safety issues at Dealer level with TSB’s, secret recalls paid on warranty tickets. Blame driver error for everything. Charge to Warranty repairs..? They do this?
5. Use consumer satisfaction surveys to determine who the biggest customer liabilities are…. make them go away? They do this?
6. They become to big to handle their Legal division will step in…. If the case is too tough, settle it, so no Image problems exist. They have to sign confidentiality agreements not to talk. Image protected and growing.. What a plan? They did this?
7. Demetrious Biller…. Whistle blower of the huge International Business Terrorism ? He is their Ex Attorney that will be at the Congressional Hearings and will explain that part of the FRAUD?
8. Game over…!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is Starting to unravel ? Watch
This is happening right before our eyes.
This is how you gain market share by hiding RECALLS……
The Audit — February 24, 2010 12:00 PM
What’s a Toyota “Exclusive?” at This Point?
Bloomberg pushes the definition
By Dean Starkman
Single PagePrintEmailCommentsDigg Facebook Reddit StumbleUpon Delicious What is an exclusive, anyway?
This is more than journalism competition issue. As readers sort through the news gusher, it’s getting harder than ever to figure out what the new news is.
The Toyota story is a perfect illustration. The carmaker is caught squarely in a global media storm and has been for weeks. Any business news outlet worthy of the name is competing to advance this story, even a little bit. Put it this way, Factiva finds 1,558 Toyota stories—today.
On February 13, Bloomberg ran a story tagged “exclusive” under this headline:
Regulators Hired by Toyota Helped Halt Acceleration Probes
Actually, nothing in the headline is exclusive at all.
And you’d really have to squint to find anything exclusive in the story, which starts this way:
Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) — At least four, U.S. investigations into unintended acceleration by Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles were ended with the help of former regulators hired by the automaker, warding off possible recalls, court and government records show.
Christopher Tinto, vice president of regulatory affairs in Toyota’s Washington office, and Christopher Santucci, who works for Tinto, helped persuade the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to end probes including those of 2002-2003 Toyota Camrys and Solaras, court documents show. Both men joined Toyota directly from NHTSA, Tinto in 1994 and Santucci in 2003.
A reader complained to Bloomberg, and copied me in, pointing out that Reuters had already found Santucci three days before, on February 10:
In one case Chris Santucci, a former U.S. safety regulator hired by Toyota in 2003, played a role in discussions with NHTSA during a 2004 probe in which the agency sharply narrowed the scope of its inquiry, according to his deposition in a lawsuit seeking damages from the Michigan crash.
A couple days earlier, on Feb. 8, The Wall Street Journal, had already found both Santucci and his current boss, Tinto.
NHTSA officials worked on the probe with their main contact at Toyota, Christopher Santucci. The NHTSA team knew Mr. Santucci: He had worked there from 2001 to 2003. Mr. Santucci’s supervisor at Toyota, Mr. Tinto, had worked at NHTSA in the past, too. Messrs. Santucci and Tinto didn’t respond to requests for comment.
This Associated Press story the same day named Tinto, though not Santucci:
Its main liaison to the federal government on vehicle safety issues is Christopher Tinto, who worked for several years in NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation as a vehicle defect investigator and in its Office of Vehicle Safety Standards, where he mostly worked on heavy-truck braking standards.
And before that, on February 4, ABC News had reported, in “Revolving Door: From US Safety Agency to Toyota Representative,” on Santucci meeting a former colleague:
Scott Yon, met with two former NHTSA colleagues who worked for Toyota, including Chris Santucci, who had left the agency only six months earlier, according to his testimony in a civil lawsuit.
Which of the above news organizations broke the Toyota/NHTSA story? None of them. As I’ve written, everyone here is following The Los Angeles Times, which started its reporting back in October.
It had a Santucci sighting on Dec. 31
When attorney Edgar Heiskell went to a Washington law office this month to depose a Toyota Motor Corp. executive, he said he was met by a virtual NHTSA alumni club now working for Toyota. It included at least two former agency attorneys and former defects investigator Christopher Santucci.
In the deposition, Santucci said he negotiated a job with Toyota while he was still employed at NHTSA and gave the agency two to three weeks’ notice.
And the NHTSA reporting goes back further. This from November 8:
Federal officials eliminated broad categories of sudden-acceleration complaints, including cases in which drivers said they were unable to stop runaway cars using their brakes; incidents of unintended acceleration lasting more than a few seconds; and reports in which owners did not identify the possible causes of the problem.
NHTSA officials used the exclusions as part of their rationale to close at least five of the investigations without finding any defect, because — with fewer incidents to consider — the agency concluded there were not enough reported problems to warrant further inquiry. In a 2003 Lexus probe, for example, the agency threw out all but one of 37 customer complaints cited in a defect petition. It then halted further investigation, saying it “found no data indicating the existence of a defect trend.”
Meanwhile, fatal crashes involving Toyota vehicles continued to mount.
But, this is not about credit, believe me. For one thing, plaintiffs’ lawyers had known about Toyota’s problems for years, but that’s another column.
Joe Winksi, who heads Bloomberg’s regulatory coverage, said in a note to the reader and me, that the wire advanced the story on a couple of key points: the specific number of probes the ex-NHTSA people hindered and the fact that other major carmakers don’t employ ex-NHTSA people the same way:
Bloomberg News was the first to show the public that Toyota is the only carmaker who currently employs former NHTSA employees to help it deal with that agency on defect issues. We also were the first to determine and show the public the specific number of investigations such personnel helped quash, which shows the scope of this constantly unfolding story. Bloomberg’s policy is to always credit prior scoops by other news organizations. Our exclusive showed new facts in this continuing story. We take your comments seriously and will update our “exclusive” tag to better show readers where we succeeded.
He adds to me, “We recognize that defining an ‘exclusive’ isn’t always a clear-cut thing and that we welcome [the reader’s] comments on the matter.”
Fair enough. A few thoughts:
First, it’s good for news organizations to compete ferociously for news and to advance investigations that are already underway.
Second, there’s nothing sacrosanct about the word “exclusive.”
Third, the Bloomberg story is a good, strong story. There’s nothing wrong with it.