Combined total of non-Toyota NHTSA complaints greater than those for Toyota! OMG, really?
So I came upon an article titled “Ford Had 20 Acceleration Deaths as Regulators Cited Human Error,” thinking that this will be some sort of comparison to the latest problems at Toyota. Nope. Instead, this is a biased piece of reporting about how Toyota’s problems are no different than incidents reported to NHTSA for any of the other automakers. So, no worries NHTSA, you can stop your investigations, these guys have all of the answers!
So where do I begin – how about the first paragraph, where the editors state:
“U.S. regulators have tracked more deaths in vehicles made by Ford Motor Co., Chrysler Group LLC and other companies combined than by Toyota Motor Corp. during three decades of unintended acceleration reviews that often blamed human error. Fifty-nine of 110 fatalities attributed to sudden acceleration in National Highway Traffic Safety Administration records occurred in vehicles other than those sold by Toyota…”
So let me get this straight – the combined total of complaints to NHTSA for all of the other automakers is greater than the number of complaints for Toyota, which contributes to nearly half of the complaints – 51 vs. 59. Additionally, the majority of the complaints can be attributed to human error. Okay – considering that GM and Ford (not combined) sell more vehicles in the US than Toyota, I wouldn’t call that a very good statistic.
The article then continues to explain that NHTSA has determined that the primary root cause of these complaints is human error. This may be the case, but that cannot be the only root cause – why else would Toyota decide to recall millions of vehicles? Just for fun? They don’t like the size of their piggy bank?
The article continues to discuss the fatality statistics for this failure mode:
“NHTSA, which is responsible for ensuring the safety of motor vehicles in the U.S., hasn’t previously disclosed the non-Toyota deaths. After Toyota’s 51, Ford and Chrysler vehicles were linked to the most deaths — 20 for Ford and 12 for Chrysler.”
Again, the statistics do not seem to favor Toyota – Ford sells more vehicles than Toyota, and although Chrysler does not sell as many as Toyota, they sell significantly more vehicles than about 20% of what Toyota sells (12/51).
I’m not rationalizing the fatalities caused by this failure mode in non-Toyota vehicles, each NHTSA case needs to be investigated thoroughly, but it seems like the authors of this articles are simply trying to say: “look, the other automakers are killing people too, Toyota is not any different.” But Toyota is different; the rate of occurrence of this failure mode is significantly higher in a Toyota vehicle as compared to a non-Toyota vehicle.
I hope the editors of this article never try to be lawyers – the arguments suck.
You can find the full article at Bloomberg.
Tags: acceleration, acceleration pedal, automakers, brake pedal, Chyrsler, complaints, Ford, GM, NHTSA, rant, sudden acceleration, Toyota, unintended acceleration
