The story of Toyota’s deadly failure to remedy the acceleration problems with its cars had endless twists last week, when Congress held hearings on the matter.
This week, the media is offering up an analysis of what Toyota did and didn’t do, with U.S. lawmakers accusing the automaker of withholding information and other drama. For example, Time magazine did a lively review of the hearings.
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1968086,00.html#
It’s hard to keep track of it all.
But what often gets neglected in the headlines about the Washington hearings and the official apologies by Toyota management is that people, a lot of people, died terrifying deaths because of these faulty brakes.
But these week, we got some of the heart-breaking stories of those who died when their cars accelerated, speeding out of their control.
First, the Los Angeles Times did lot of legwork and found that at least 56 people have died in accidents related to the sudden acceleration of their Toyota vehicles.
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb/28/business/la-fi-toyota-deaths-mainbar28-2010feb28
That piece offers an overview of some of the circumstances and details of these crashes, which may have been avoided if Toyota had acted sooner. The common theme seems to be the terror and helplessness the victims felt before their cars sped out of control and they were killed.
The second story offers a capsule account of each of the 56 deaths, with the person’s name, date of their fatal accident and the circumstances.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/la-fiw-toyota-deaths-list28-2010feb28,0,3224161,print.story
It humanizes these people. It reminds us of when The New York Times wrote profiles of each victim of the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City. It put a face on those innocents.
The National Highway Safety Board has actually bought the Lexus ES 350 that was owned by hearing witnesses Rhonda and Eddie Smith of Tennessee. They described how their Lexus accelerated on a highway for six long minutes until Rhonda got control of the vehicle again.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2010/02/feds-to-study-lexus-that-almost-killed-tenneessee-woman/1
