Toyota is coming out looking pretty good so far in the U.S. government’s investigation of the sudden acceleration of the auto maker’s vehicles that allegedly lead to accidents, many of them fatal, according to reports in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal Wednesday.
In a Page One story, The Times said that federal officials hadn’t discovered any evidence of faulty electronics in 58 of the cars that crashed.
Federal officials said they were’t coming to any conclusions yet, but that the initial data bolsters Toyota’s claim that its vehicles electronics weren’t malfunctioning.
Toyota recalled almost 9 million Toyota and Lexus vehicles around ther world when allegations arose that accelerator pedals were getting stuck under floor mats, causing the sudden and sometimes deadly sudden acceleration.
The U.S. Transportation Department gave its initial findings to members of Congress Tuesday, according to The Journal, whose story was headlined “U.S. Study Points to Driver Error in Many Toyota Crashes.”
The paper noted that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that in the 58 vehicles it looked at, in 35 of them their data “black boxes” indicated that pressure wasn’t being applied to their brakes at the time of their crash. That could mean drivers were at error, by perhaps hitting the gas pedal instead of their brakes.
If the government probe in fact does clear Toyota, it will be interesting to see the fate of the hundreds of lawsuits that are pending agains the car maker.
