AUTOMOTIVE NEWS – AT 8:32 A.M. ET:  Have you ever wondered what happened to those stories about unintended acceleration by Toyota vehicles?  We were led to believe by the painstream media that if we entered a Toyota Camry we were surely going to our end. 

Well, apparently the "defect" has been studied, and guess what?  From The Los Angeles Times:

An investigation into sudden acceleration in Toyota and Lexus vehicles by the nation's space agency is expected to report Tuesday that no significant electronic defects have been found, though the issue requires continued monitoring, according to automotive electronics and safety experts.

The NASA report was commissioned by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration after thousands of owners complained that their Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles accelerated unexpectedly, causing dozens of deaths.

I wonder how many of the "thousands" had dreams of cash settlements in exchange for shutting up?

The study was launched in March in the wake of three congressional investigations. It is scheduled to be made public at a press conference in Washington.

Although NASA and NHTSA have closely guarded the contents of the study, automotive safety experts say a dramatic finding is unlikely — saying that if NASA engineers had found a defect, the government probably would have asked Toyota to issue a public notice and recall.

"If they had found something already, we would have heard about it," said Jim Mucciola, an automotive electronics consultant in Detroit and a member of an electronics compatibility committee on the Society of Automotive Engineers. "So far, it has been very quiet."

COMMENT:  At one time the Audi automobile was essentially destroyed in America – it has since made a comeback – by reports of "unintended acceleration," which were eventually disproved. 

These "tragedies" take on a life of their own, and are fodder for people who hate car makers or who believe they can make some quick money.  True, there have been validated reports of unintended acceleration when car mats get jammed under the accelerator pedal, but actually jamming on the brake will usually override that.  If not, throwing the car into neutral or just turning off the ignition should do the trick.  When I hear claims by experienced drivers that they traveled miles on a highway with a car out of control, I really do wonder. 

One of our readers, who has a fine background in the automotive field, tells us that he knows of only one confirmed case of true unintended acceleration, and that it occurred in a vehicle in the White House motor pool whose computer was affected by powerful communications equipment installed in the car.  The problem was quickly fixed. 

February 8, 2011