THE TOYOTA MYSTERY SOLVED? – AT 8:31 A.M. ET:  Regular readers know that we've been following the Toyota story closely, in part because it's analogous to the global-warming saga, a great deal of political science, very little real science.

If Toyota has "sudden-acceleration" problems, why did we not know it a lot earlier?  Toyota is the world's largest auto company.  There are millions of Toyotas on the road.  Did any of you readers ever have a sudden-acceleration problem in a Toyota, or know of a friend or relative who did?

It's now clear that there are going to be many false claims.  But is there a problem at all?  The Atlantic has a superb piece on the subject:

The Los Angeles Times recently did a story detailing all of the NHTSA reports of Toyota "sudden acceleration" fatalities, and, though the Times did not mention it, the ages of the drivers involved were striking.

In the 24 cases where driver age was reported or readily inferred, the drivers included those of the ages 60, 61, 63, 66, 68, 71, 72, 72, 77, 79, 83, 85, 89--and I'm leaving out the son whose age wasn't identified, but whose 94-year-old father died as a passenger.

These "electronic defects" apparently discriminate against the elderly, just as the sudden acceleration of Audis and GM autos did before them.

Hmm.  Maybe we're getting somewhere. 

In the original Sudden Acceleration Incident craze that afflicted America in the late eighties, the National Highway Safety Transportation Administration eventually ruled that the problem was "pedal misapplication," aka stepping on the gas when you meant to step on the brake. These incidents were highly correlated with three things: being elderly, being short, and parking (or leaving a parking space). The elderly are more prone to the sort of neuronal misfiring described in yesterday's New York Times. Shorter people have to hunt more for the pedals. And starting up from a complete stop is the most likely time to press the wrong pedal.

The problem with that conclusion is that there's no big story in it, there's no lawsuit money in it, and there's no "consumer advocate" publicity in it. 

The story examines, with charts, a history of "incidents" of "sudden acceleration."

At any rate, when you look at these incidents all together, it's pretty clear why Toyota didn't investigate this "overwhelming evidence" of a problem: they look a lot like typical cases of driver error. I don't know that all of them are. But I do know that however advanced Toyota's electronics are, they're not yet clever enough to be able to pick on senior citizens.

Unfortunately, that won't help Toyota much. It will still face a wave of lawsuits, and all the negative publicity means that it may be hard for the company to get a fair trial. Even if it does, the verdict in the court of public opinion will still hurt their sales for some time to come.

COMMENT:  Auto safety is a serious subject, and automobile companies, especially American ones, have very dark histories in this regard.  "Safety doesn't sell," Lee Iacocca, a wildly overrated executive, once famously said.  American companies had to be forced, literally, to install safety equipment.  Today they're different, and emphasize safety, and they've found that it sells.

But past irresponsibility doesn't mean every charge against an auto company is accurate.  Beware of "sudden acceleration."  It has that "global warming" ring.

March 15, 2010