A health and safety expert (who himself had a devastating accident in a Toyota several decades ago) is taking a tire iron to those hyping the #2 car company’s recent woes.
Writing in the L.A. Times’ Wednesday opinion pages, Michael Fumento of the Independent Journalism Project notes that
although Toyota had almost 17% of total U.S. car sales in 2008, it accounted for merely 8% of total claims for deaths and injuries in the first quarter of that year, according to NHTSA. Edmunds.com found that while Toyota was third in U.S. car sales from 2001 through 2010, it was 17th in NHTSA complaints. Thus, even if every sudden-acceleration complaint proved valid, Toyotas are among the safest cars made.My own experience owning 2005 and 2010 Prius models has been entirely positive. While averaging around 50 mpg, I’ve had no service issues whatsoever—just routine maintenance. When the recent brake recall was announced, I took the car straight to a dealer, who performed a completely painless (and free) 20 minute software upgrade. End of story.
Moreover, some of those reports surely could have been driver fault. To err is human; to blame errors on external factors is even more so.
Those engaging in Toyota schadenfreude conveniently forget that hardly a month goes by without some car being recalled for a small or large fix. Last fall, for example, Ford had to recall 4.5 million vehicles—the largest in the carmaker’s history:
“A faulty cruise control switch can leak hydraulic fluid, overheat, smoke and then burn, and risks causing a fire even when the ignition is turned off, parked and unattended, the NHTSA said.”
Oops. Anyone remember that one? Was the President of Ford forced to commit virtual hara-kiri in the press to atone for his company’s sins?
Of course not. But when it involves Toyota, we can count on the major media to highlight even the most minor and fixable problems, which when investigated often turn out to be the result of driver error, not vehicle design... Especially if any complaints involve the Prius, which seems to inspire the same sort of resentment among conventional car owners as the mere existence of vegetarians inspires among some of our flesh-chewing friends.
