As if it couldn’t get any worse for Toyota, it seems it has. The Detroit Free Press is reporting that in 2008, there was a lawsuit after Guadalupe Alberto of Flint, MI, died when her out-of-control 2005 Camry crashed. The suit alleged that the Camry in question was suffering from the sticky gas pedal problem I reported on earlier today. Continue reading for more details.
What was revealed in the suit will shock you: the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration started investigating 2002-2003 Toyota Camrys, Solaras and Lexus ES 300s, all for “unintended acceleration” complaints. Here’s the kicker: Christopher Santucci had just joined Toyota after leaving the NHTSA, and he got his previous coworkers to limit the investigation to those incidents of unintended acceleration of one second or less. So not only does this look bad for Toyota, but it certainly puts a black mark on the NHTSA as well, even if it was just one employee who caused the problem.
by John Suit
Source: Detroit Free Press via AutoBlog