If I bring any bias to this Toyota problem it is that drivers need to take responsibility. We have created a world where we expect magic and/or blame for any problem we encounter. Driving has become a right more than privilege and with the expected consequences. With that in mind I started clicking around the web to see what had been posted. Anyone, and I sure hope that includes Toyota, can search for vehicle problems and discover if others may have posted incidents or complaints about vehicle troubles. I started through a too long list of reported problems with Toyota fitting so-called unintended acceleration. The more I clicked the more I was shocked. In each report I tried to imagine what COULD have happened that was not apparent to the driver or reporter. What became more difficult was the number of events.
I do believe that a huge factor is the number of vehicles Toyota sells, and as I mentioned previously, the number of drivers. I suspect, that further, Toyota’s reputation likely results in increased event problems and reporting. By that my personal observation is that Toyota’s a more likely to be bought with expectations that then lower driver preparedness. That is a bit of a strong claim and many would say irrelevant I realize. It is not an excuse, but I am seeing a potential because less skilled drivers would be attracted to a vehicle that they think is safe. I wish it were like Dumbo’s feather, improving driving ability, attention, etc., but I think the opposite is the result. The net from my view is that Toyota may have essentially invited a skewing of customers that only can exaggerate any resulting safety problem.
Even with all those biases, there are simply too many reports to simply discount. I cannot imagine that this would not be a top priority at Toyota. By that I mean for some time prior to this news explosion I can’t imagine how this would not be a very active investigation internally. I assume Toyota has a team assigned to monitoring, investigating, strategizing and responding externally and communicating internally about the various reports, both public and private to Toyota. I would say this has been the biggest failing of Toyota. The number of incidents is a flag to tend to, whether there is or is not a vehicle-related problem.
The historic events of unintended acceleration can be discounted as driver error, even where the drivers have understandably been convinced they had no role in the event. There may be critical contributing factors such as the floor mat. The magnitude of risk to Toyota is nearly the same regardless of cause so in retrospect it seems clear greater attention was in order.
As I searched through various event reports relating to unintended acceleration, I felt a bit like I was reading about UFO sightings. My engineering mind was having too much stretching to imagine how reported events occurred. User reports are understandably missing some information, but the volume of reports was striking to me with very little searching. Of course drivers can only report their own version of events which we fail to realize is not the whole story. Maybe because of how these events strike your personal psyche there is no way to easily look dispassionately. We try to live that individuals charged are innocent until proven guilty, but I think we are much faster to judgement where we sense potential personal risk.
In all my clicking around I have failed any “truth” in this whole area of vehicle controls. It may be because of litigation issues that Toyota and others may need to not take such stands publicly. In any case I can only come to the conclusion that this whole situation is not acceptable. I hope we don’t have lawyers to blame for this all being such a mystery. I don’t think that is an acceptable result to Toyota, any manufacturer or consumers.
One mystery that I can imagine and may be a huge hidden factor here is the rate of change in vehicle evolution. More in my next post. (Should be right now–some cockpit error kept this post from going up a few days ago.)