Toyota Sudden Acceleration Probe Widens

Toyota Sudden Acceleration Probe Widens by Texas Sudden Acceleration Lawyer Justin A. Hill

Toyota Sudden Accelerations are currently the hottest topic in the automotive safety world.  However, it appears that this problem may have been reported to NHTSA as early as 2004.  The Wall Street Journal reports:

A House committee investigating Toyota Motor Corp. will broaden its probe to examine whether Bush administration officials adequately responded to the Japanese auto maker’s safety problems, the panel’s senior Republican said Friday. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee plans to hold a second hearing on the Toyota crisis, likely in the first week of March, Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) said in an interview.  The committee’s first hearing, scheduled for Wednesday, is set to include testimony from Toyota President Akio Toyoda and U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.  Rep. Issa said for the second hearing, the committee will seek testimony from officials who led the Transportation Department and the agency’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration under former President George W. Bush. Rep. Issa said there are questions about whether the NHTSA responded adequately to signs in recent years of broader safety problems at Toyota.  “There isn’t an NHTSA failure under this president. There is a continuation of a failure” that may go back more than a decade, Mr. Issa said. He said he has seen no evidence that the NHTSA under Bush did anything “overtly wrong” but added that he believes the agency failed to correct a “looming problem” with Toyota.  Nicole Nason, who served as NHTSA administrator in the Bush administration, said she has consulted with congressional staffers during their Toyota inquiry but hasn’t been invited to testify. Ms. Nason, who has defended her agency’s response to the Toyota complaints and has questioned whether the auto maker has been forthright in alerting regulators to safety problems, said she would be open to appearing before Congress.    A spokeswoman for committee Chairman Edolphus Towns (D., N.Y.) said a second hearing hadn’t been planned yet.  The House and Senate commerce committees have also scheduled hearings to examine Toyota’s recall of about six million U.S. vehicles for gas-pedal and sudden-acceleration problems. The first hearing is scheduled for Tuesday.

A class action was recently filed relating to the problem of sudden acceleration in Toyotas. Our firm is currently handling Toyota sudden acceleration cases. Sudden acceleration is a dangerous and potentially fatal defect. If someone you know was injured or killed as the result of a sudden acceleration defect, encourage them to immediately contact a competent attorney for advice. It is extremely important to do this quickly to ensure that evidence is preserved, statements are taken, and the rights of all are protected.