Toyota witch hunt

Fumento on Neil Cavuto tonight on Toyota

by Michael Fumento on August 5, 2010

in Nanny State, Regulation

I’m scheduled to be the lead guest on Neil Cavuto on the Fox Business Channel at 6pm tonight.

Subject: The news that NHTSA is withholding exculpatory evidence regarding “alleged death” Toyota sudden acceleration accidents. And perhaps the guy in Michigan convicted of manslaughter who is the first to use “The Toyota Defense,” that he hit the brakes and therefore the car accelerated. I’ve written about the “I’m sure I hit the brakes!” issue previously, in my piece, “Why Do Toyotas Hate the Elderly?

Phony “Toyota deaths database.” My article in Forbes magazine

by Michael Fumento on July 21, 2010 · 1 comment

in Regulation

In the Toyota witch hunt, nothing has been more damning than those deaths we’re told Toyota sudden acceleration “allegedly caused” or, depending on whom you read, did cause.

As I note in my just-published Forbes magazine article, “93 and Counting,” the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration insists on the term “allegedly.” But U.S. News & World Report blog-post headline proclaimed: “NHTSA: 89 Deaths Caused by Unintended Acceleration in Toyota Vehicles.” The Los Angeles Times stated in a headline that sudden acceleration “led to” the deaths. A New York Post headline earlier declared that faulty Toyotas “have killed” 52 people. A CBS News Web headline (over an Associated Press story) similarly said the acceleration car fault “has killed” 89.

Toyota doesn’t look so bad after all!

In any case, the NHTSA “complaint database,” available on its website to anyone (yes, including the mainstream media), is hooey. So I found when I actually looked at the complaints. (Now there’s a novel idea!) Anybody can enter anything. An entry filed by someone named “Damnable Liar” from Holy Toledo! Ohio claimed his car accelerated to the moon because of a child seat problem. That was mine. But the ones citing 99 deaths in one vehicle? Not mine.

Three of the alleged fatal accidents never took place, which DID take sleuthing on my part. So did finding that, after the frenzy began, seven entries comprising ten deaths originally blamed on other aspects of the cars were refiled as unintended acceleration.

But at a glance you can see many simply deduce that since investigators found no cause other than driver error, then the accelerator must be responsible. Or they make the illogical deduction that since the brakes weren’t applied, it was sudden acceleration. And so on.

And then there was the lady whose son, while sloshed and after smoking dope, killed his best friend in a Toyota Scion. After entering a NHTSA complaint blaming her boy’s accident on sudden acceleration she entered seven more Scion complaints comprising 12 deaths that she’d merely pulled out of news reports and labeled as sudden acceleration. She’s covering for her son.

Yes, these are the “alleged” or “Toyota-caused” deaths we keep hearing about!

No, NHTSA didn’t blame all Toyota’s troubles on driver error

by Michael Fumento on July 16, 2010

in Regulation

I can’t count how many people sent me items about how NHTSA says the whole Toyota Tempest has now been determined by the government to have been driver error. Hallelujah! Case closed!

Wrong.

The ruckus began with a Wall Street Journal piece with the unfortunately ambiguous titles: “Crash Data Suggest Driver Error in Toyota Accidents” and “Early Tests Pin Toyota Accidents on Drivers.”

It stated:

The U.S. Department of Transportation has analyzed dozens of data recorders from Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles involved in accidents blamed on sudden acceleration and found that the throttles were wide open and the brakes weren’t engaged at the time of the crash, people familiar with the findings said. The early results suggest that some drivers who said their Toyotas and Lexuses surged out of control were mistakenly flooring the accelerator when they intended to jam on the brakes.

Of course they found that. I wrote about the mistaken pedal issue months ago. It’s been know about since the 1980s and especially plagues the elderly.

More important was the Journal’s quote from scientist with the National Academy of Sciences, which has been studying the problem. “‘In spite of our investigations, we have not actually been able yet to find a defect’ in electronic throttle-control systems.”

And they never will. Even though that’s the pet theory of the media and trial lawyers, there’s nothing wrong with Toyota’s electronic throttles.

But consider this statistic:

In the first half of last year, about 100 people reported sudden unintended acceleration in Toyotas. In the first half of this year, it was about 5,000. Do you think that’s all “driver error,” much less all those people stomping the wrong pedal all of the sudden?

Stay tuned!

Automakers’ new problems – vampires and bears

by Michael Fumento on July 7, 2010

in Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Regulation

Toyota complaints keep pouring in to the National Highway Safety Administration, and some are pretty darned bizarre. But most are less so than a Colorado woman’s woman’s claim that a vampire attacked her Chevy Blazer.

The 58-year-old woman, whom police said appeared to be drug- and alcohol-free said smashed her SUV into a canal while escaping from one of the undead. “Authorities told KKCO-TV that the driver claimed she spotted the bloodsucker while driving on a dirt road outside Fruita, Colo., on Sunday – so she threw the car into reverse in an attempt to escape” and rolled into a ditch.

No word yet on whether DOT Secretary Ray LaHood will propose making as mandatory equipment on all new cars both crucifixes and containers for holding fresh garlic. And mind, ye cynics, we know events transpired as she said because nobody would ever lie about why they got in an accident.

In a more “grizzly” accident, the driver of a 2006 Subaru Impreza submitted multiple complaints to NHTSA stating:

I HIT A BEAR AT 55MPH WITH THE CRUISE CONTROL ON. THE BEAR LEAPED OFF THE BANK IN DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF THE VEHICLE. THE CRASH THAT RESULTED IN THE BEAR BEING KILLED INSTANTLY, ABOUT 600 LBS. OF BEAR. THE CAR CAME TO AN INSTANT HALT WITH THE FRONT END BEING PUSHED BACK, LIGHTS,GRILLE,FENDER, HOOD, ECT. NO AIR BAGS DEPLOYED. AFTER CALLING SUBARU OF AMERICA, I WAS ADVISED TO LET MY INSURANCE HANDLE IT, BUT AFTER MUCH ARGUMENT WAS ASSIGNED A CASE NUMBER OF 1020805 BY SUBARU. THIS IS NOT A INSURANCE PROBLEM, THIS IS SUBARU PROBLEM.

Actually, it sounds like the party with the biggest problem was the poor bear. Aside from that, the air bag failure is cause for concern but the focus on the cruise control and blaming Suburu generally would seem . . . well, actually would seem pretty typical these days.

But I cheated; actually the accident was reported in 2007. Right about when the bear that played “Gentle Ben” went missing . . .

Incidentally, I’m at the end stage of two different Toyota articles that will blow the top right off the hysteria. Stay tuned.

Sudden Acceleration in Media Falsehoods Regarding Toyota

by Michael Fumento on May 27, 2010 · 2 comments

in Nanny State, Regulation

“Now that the dust has begun to settle on Toyota’s recall fiasco, it’s being made clear that the toll on human life was greater than initially reported,” reports U.S. News & World Report online. The title: “NHTSA: 89 Deaths Caused by Unintended Acceleration in Toyota Vehicles.”

Not exactly true. Says who? NHTSA. Here’s an email I received this morning from their press office.

Please remember these are customer generated complaints of alleged unintended acceleration that have not been verified by NHTSA:
“As of May 20, 2010, NHTSA has received complaints covering a total of seventy-one (71) fatal incidents that allegedly involve unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles since 2000. These reports covering incidents dating back to 2000 include eighty-nine (89) fatalities and fifty-seven (57) injuries.”

The emphasis is original. They used both bold and italics to try to make the point. And it just doesn’t seem to take, does it?

tort-related-claims-for-blog

In fairness, often news outlets do make it clear these are mere allegations, but they never make it clear enough how tenuous the link is. You can send NHTSA a complaint online or by phone and claim absolutely anything you want. You say that your Toyota become a giant Transformer, wreaked havoc on Manhattan, and then became a Civic again? That’s fine. The computer won’t spit your complaint back out.

I went through the process on the NHTSA complaint page myself and was one keyboard tap away from turning those 89 deaths into 93 deaths.

And that’s how 19 deaths associated with Toyota sudden acceleration in November, before the first class action suit was filed, has become 89 deaths. No, more people haven’t died. More people have simply come to the conclusion that a death in their Toyota over the last decade was caused by sudden acceleration. The offer of lucre has a way of jogging the ol’ memory.

I’ll be writing more on this. Meanwhile, I’ve published 10 articles on the hysteria and there’s a lot more where that came from.

The Toyota Hobgoblin, my piece in today’s Philly Inquirer

by Michael Fumento on May 10, 2010

in Nanny State, Odds & Ends, Regulation

‘The whole aim of practical politics,” wrote H.L. Mencken, “is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Last year’s hobgoblin was swine flu. The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology warned of as many as 90,000 excess flu deaths, and the federal government declared two national emergencies. Yet, flu season’s over and the CDC estimates estimates we’ve had perhaps a third the usual number of flu deaths.

This year’s hobgoblin is Toyota. You know, those cars whizzing hither and thither, smashing into walls, doctors’ offices, nail salons, and–here’s the best one–a Toyota dealership!

“Stop driving” recalled Toyotas, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood told owners in February. Congress has held three days of hearings on the matter. Never mind that despite its bad press last year, Toyota easily grabbed first place in Consumer Reports‘ reader survey. Edmunds.com found that while Toyota ranked third in U.S. car sales over the past decade, it ranked only 17th in safety complaints to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The government has to have that hobgoblin against which to defend it. Toyota was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Read my piece here, but not without your magic anti-hobgoblin crystal.

Toyota’s “questionable, evasive, and deceptive legal tactics”

by Michael Fumento on April 12, 2010 · 1 comment

in Nanny State, Regulation

“Toyota has routinely engaged in questionable, evasive and deceptive legal tactics when sued, frequently claiming it does not have information it is required to turn over and sometimes even ignoring court orders to produce key documents, an Associated Press investigation shows.” Or has it? I’m not necessarily challenging their conclusion, I’m really asking.

The point of my Toyota writings so far has been that the company builds great cars and has been falsely maligned. That doesn’t mean it hasn’t engaged in wrongful courtroom antics, though, and the company just doesn’t pay me enough to say otherwise. (Actually for the record they don’t pay me anything. Nor does any PR firm. HOWEVER, for one of these babies, it’s just possible they can buy me off and I think they have nothing to lose in trying. See inset.)

One problem is it is indeed just AP’s review. As my articles have made clear, the media are on a witch hunt and just as witch hunters of yore often believed they were doing the Lord’s work, so do those of today. And just as those witch hunters were often just a bit too quick to see evidence of witchcraft where none was to be found, so too today.

Another problem is that it’s clear from the article that the “experts” upon whom the journalists relied aren’t just lawyers, aren’t just trial lawyers, but are trial lawyers suing Toyota. “Automobile manufacturers, in my practice, have been the toughest to deal with when it comes to sharing information,” one lawyer told AP, ” but Toyota has no peer.” He represents somebody killed in a Toyota crash.

Then we’re told, “Similar claims have been lodged by Dimitrios Biller, a former Toyota attorney who sued the company in August, contending it withheld evidence in considerably older rollover cases.”

To its credit, AP does say, “Attorneys who regularly defend corporate clients say it’s common for plaintiffs’ lawyers to complain they are not receiving the information they need and that Toyota’s tactics do not necessarily indicate nefarious intent.” Moreover, if you pore over enough lawsuits you will find discrepancies. That’s the old rule of “The more you look, the more you find.” It’s pretty much a given that if you analyze every tort case Toyota has been involved in over the last decade or so, you’ll probably find some legal wrongdoing – and the same would be true for Ford or GM.

The jury is still out on this one.

D.C. area poll shows, once again, OTHER Americans are crummy drivers

by Michael Fumento on April 4, 2010 · 1 comment

in Health and Illness, Regulation

Why are people killed in Toyotas? Because a huge number of Americans are killed by motor vehicles of all types and Toyota has been the third biggest seller her for the past decade. Why do so many people complain about sudden unintended acceleration in Toyotas? Because so many Americans complain of sudden unintended vehicles across the board and see above. And what links these two? Americans are crummy drivers. But mind you, it’s not us it’s them!

“Fully 80 percent of area adults often see distracted driving, with reports of such behavior surging in the past five years,” according to a new Washington Post poll . More than two-thirds of those surveyed said they often witness overly aggressive driving. Yet only one in eight considers his or her own driving too aggressive.

Almost everyone polled, including those under 30, said sending or reading texts or e-mails while driving should be illegal. But nearly a fourth of respondents said they e-mail, text or use the Internet while driving. For young adults that goes up to 40 percent.

“Do as I say, not as I do” is a common attitude. Often it’s a joke line. But when it comes to driving, in a nation that’s lost 400,000 people on the roads in the past decade of which all of 56 have been “associated with” runaway Toyotas (about half the total butcher’s bill per day, the joke isn’t very funny.

CDC dumping swine flu vaccine – after media dumped the truth

by Michael Fumento on April 2, 2010 · 2 comments

in Health and Illness

What do you get from a phony flu scare? Among other things, lots of worthless vaccine.

“Despite months of dire warnings and millions in taxpayer dollars, less than half of the 229 million doses of H1N1 vaccine the government bought to fight the pandemic have been administered – leaving an estimated 71.5 million doses that must be discarded if they are not used before they expire.” So reports the Washington Post‘s Rob Stein.

Actually, it’s billions of dollars but who’s counting? And actually Rob Stein contributed to all this with such article ledes as: “Swine flu could infect half the U.S. population this fall and winter, hospitalizing up to 1.8 million people and causing as many as 90,000 deaths – more than double the number that occur in an average flu season, according to an estimate from a presidential panel released Monday.”

Of course, who knew better back then in August? Well, I did. Just days later in the Philadelphia Inquirer I noted statistics showing swine flu to be vastly milder than seasonal flu and said swine flu appears to be replacing the current seasonal H1N1 virus. Therefore, as one former WHO epidemiologist told me, “My bet is that the coming [U.S.] season will not be too severe – at or below that of a usual flu season.”

And indeed, the latest CDC estimate, with the flu almost gone, is that 12,000 Americans have died this season as opposed to the typical 36,000. And as I’ve written, data from other countries indicate the CDC estimates are almost certainly far too high. Did I have access to any information the Washington Post didn’t? Or for that matter The New York Times or Wall Street Journal or USA Today and on and on? Obviously not.

Of course, now the media have moved on to a new hysteria: “Runaway Killer Toyotas.” And they’re playing the same game. Why was I the one who exposed the “runaway Prius” hoax? Did I have access to any information the rest of the media did not?

And yet they’re still not telling the truth about the hoax.

Four days after my piece appeared, the Washington Post declared driver James “Sikes said he tried to free his gas pedal with his hand but did not say whether he put the car in neutral.” As I had noted he repeatedly said he did not try to put the car in neutral, including at a press conference available on the Web and in a CNN interview on the Web. And importantly, the reasons he gave showed beyond any doubt he was lying. That’s why it’s important to the Post that its readers not know that.

The media still pursue stories to be sure. But if you believe they place much value on pursuit of the truth, might I inquire as to the address of the rock under which you’ve been living?

Car buyers rejecting “Toyota Terror” accusations

by Michael Fumento on April 1, 2010

in Nanny State, Regulation

“Terror on the Roads: Runaway Toyotas,” was the title of an entry on a prominent Brazilian blog March 31.

But today Toyota Motor Sales reported March sales increased 35.3 percent over the same period last year, on a daily selling rate (DSR) basis.

Meanwhile the Harvard Business Review has analyzed a survey of U.S. American vehicle owners conducted between February 20 and March 2 to find out how they feel about Toyota. They found “Toyota owners’ overall satisfaction was in line with other vehicle owners’.”

Said the journal:

These respondents aren’t living under rocks. Both for Toyota and non-Toyota owners, 93% of respondents had heard about the recalls. But contrary to media prognostications, the recalls don’t appear to have affected the Toyota brand image adversely among its customers. Toyota owners, compared to owners of other vehicles, agreed more strongly that Toyota appropriately handled issues with respect to the brake-pedal recall; they were more likely to say they believed that this incident is an outlier, that typically Toyota has a strong reputation for quality, and that recall shows Toyota’s commitment to customer safety.

Toyota owners:

. . .did not believe that “domestic automakers such as GM, Ford, and Chrysler are catching up to Toyota and Honda in either safety or reliability.” And regarding the big question, “Would you buy another Toyota? Again, the results were clear. Toyota owners did not believe they would be less likely to buy a Toyota vehicle in the future because of sudden accelerator furor, indicated greater willingness than non-Toyota customers to consider buying a Toyota, and considered Toyota to be one of the most reliable automotive brands.

Together these indicate that Toyota sales may not suffer in the long term, unlike with Audi after it suffered its own sudden acceleration witch hunt in the 1980s. That said, tort lawyers have filed suits that could cost the company many billions of dollars. What the free market system perhaps won’t do, the legal system very well could.

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