vehicles that allegedly accelerated out of control in the past decade,
federal safety regulators said Monday, reflecting a sharp jump in the
number of motorist complaints being filed in the three weeks since the
automaker announced its latest recalls.
The new count from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration includes 13 fatalities reported since
ordered a sales and production halt of eight models in the U.S. to fix
gas pedals that it said can stick and cause unintended acceleration.
An analysis of the data by the Los Angeles Times
shows that all but one of the deaths reported to NHTSA by motorists in
2010 actually occurred in prior years — as far back as 1992 —
suggesting that recent public attention to the issue spurred people to
file complaints regarding past incidents. Most of the incidents
occurred between 2003 and 2009.
According to accounts filed with the NHTSA,
In addition to the fatalities, federal regulators
said 22 people reported injuries from unintended acceleration accidents
involving
The Times first drew attention to the unusually high number of deaths attributed to sudden acceleration events in
when it reported that the 19 fatalities linked to the problem since
2001 was greater than the total for all other automakers combined.
The rise in new complaints did not surprise federal
highway safety officials, given the widespread news coverage that
accompanied
“It is normal for NHTSA to receive an increase in
consumer complaints after a recall is announced and the public learns
of a safety defect,” said
for the agency. “NHTSA takes every complaint seriously and reviews each
one carefully. The agency is quickly gathering more data on all of
these additional complaints to help guide our examination of sudden
acceleration … as well as other safety issues.”
The agency generally does not seek to prove or
disprove whether sudden acceleration occurred in the accidents, instead
using the database of complaints to help identify potential defect
trends. The Associated Press first reported the rise in the fatality
count Monday.
“We take all customer reports seriously,”
said in a statement released Monday. “That’s why we are taking steps to
implement more stringent quality controls, investigate customer
complaints more aggressively, keep open lines of communication with
safety agencies and respond more quickly to safety issues we identify.”
The automaker has resumed sales and production of
the eight models, and its dealers are in the process of installing
shims on gas pedals to correct what it calls a defect that could make
the pedal stick.
Nonetheless, the jump in reported fatalities in
And many experts expect the drumbeat of bad news to
continue, as House and Senate committees prepare for investigatory
hearings in coming weeks.
Despite the growing number of fatalities, federal safety regulators are still only finding the tip of the iceberg, said
“We are going to go over 100 without a doubt,”
Ditlow said. “The only question is what is the true number. So many
fatalities don’t get attributed to sudden acceleration, especially as
you go further back in time before people were paying attention to
The company has issued 10 million recall notices on
three continents in recent months, with 2 million vehicles subject to
more than one recall.
The largest recall, announced last fall, focuses on
floor mats that the automaker said can entrap the accelerator pedal.
The second recall addresses gas pedals that
This month, both Congress and NHTSA have said they
are looking into whether electronic throttle control, which is standard
equipment on all
denied that possibility, pointing to internal and external testing, as
well as eight federal investigations, none of which found a defect in
that system.
The latest data on fatalities, filed as consumer
complaints to NHTSA, does not reflect all potential deaths from sudden
acceleration in
vehicles suffering runaway acceleration led to fatalities, but those
cases have not been registered as complaints in the government database.
The database has been flooded with complaints since
the news of the latest recalls, followed by an unusual decision to stop
sales and production of eight
models late last month. Nearly 40 percent of all reported deaths
related to runaway Toyotas have come this year, and complaints related
to potential defects normally increase when there is national publicity
of the issue.
has not released data from its own internal complaint files on
accidents, injuries or deaths alleged to stem from unintended
acceleration. The automaker has declined to state how many complaints
of the problem have been filed, but in general databases held by
manufacturers are orders of magnitude larger than NHTSA’s.
NHTSA data show that many of the fatality reports involved
For example, a fatal crash on
According to the NHTSA complaint, the car hit a
vehicle head-on, killing four people. “Believe car had uncontrolled
acceleration,” said the complaint, which was filed
In addition, the data shows complaints alleging
fatalities involving a Scion tC, and a Lexus GS, neither of which
models are included in the recalls. No Scion models have been named in
any of the recalls.
Nearly all the sudden acceleration-related fatality complaints on file for
affect vehicles manufactured since the 2002 model year. Only five such
allegations are included in vehicles produced prior to that time, the
oldest dating back to a 1988 Camry that crashed into a brick wall.
The majority of fatalities were in Camry and Lexus
ES vehicles, both of which are built on the same platform and share
many components. Both vehicles are subject to the floor mat recall.
A complaint of an
accident in a Lexus ES 330 alleges that the driver had removed the
floor mats from the vehicle the morning of a sudden acceleration
incident than ended with the sedan striking and killing a pedestrian in
Another complaint detailed a 2004 crash in
that took the life of a female driver whose 2003 Camry surged out of
control and smashed into a building. The vehicle had fewer than 7,000
miles on it. A handwritten notation on the complaint, filed shortly
after the accident, said “throttle stuck — engine surged.”
Paramedics arriving on the scene, the complaint said, “found the driver with both feet still on the brake pedal.”
—
(c) 2010, Los Angeles Times.
Visit the Los Angeles Times on the Internet at http://www.latimes.com/
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
