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The U.S. Department of Transportation, as part of its ongoing investigation, has found no defects with Toyota vehicles that reportedly experienced sudden, unintended acceleration and has instead uncovered evidence suggesting driver error is to blame according to a report in The Wall Street Journal citing anonymous sources.
According to the Journal’s sources, the analysis of “dozens” of data recorders, also known as “black boxes,” has revealed that at the times of the crashes, the throttles were wide open and the brakes were not being depressed. Such evidence suggests that the drivers were mistakenly standing on the gas pedal when they thought they were standing on the brakes.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has reportedly investigated several dozen reports of Toyota vehicles that failed to stop accelerating when the brakes were depressed, resulting in a crash. NHTSA hand selected the cases it picked and the data recorders it analyzed based on reports to the agency and without input from Toyota. According to a report NHTSA complied in March of this year, the agency has received over 3000 complaints of sudden acceleration, 75 of which resulted in fatal accidents in which 93 people died.
In collaborating with the National Academy of Sciences, NHTSA revealed that it has only been able to confirm one case of legitimate sudden acceleration in those 75 fatal accidents. That accident was the catalyst that sparked the entire scandal, an off-duty California Highway Patrol officer who crashed on the freeway near San Diego, California, on August 28, 2009 killing all the occupants of the vehicle.
That crash was eventually attributed to an all-weather floor mat from a different vehicle that had been placed on top of the car’s own carpeted floor mats and had become lodged under the gas pedal, holding it down and the throttle open. That accident led to global floor mat recall and later to a recall of certain throttle pedals that were slow to return to idle, eventually encompassing more than eight million vehicles. The NHTSA report does not excuse those issues and the agency previously levied its highest-possible fine of $16.4 million against Toyota for failing to disclose the sticky pedal problem sooner.
“In spite of our investigations, we have not actually been able yet to find a defect” in electronic throttle-control systems, NHTSA’s associate administrator for enforcement, Daniel Smith, told the National Academy of Sciences last month. “We’re bound and determined that if it exists we’re going to find it,” he added. “But as yet, we haven’t found it.”
Toyota hasn’t been officially informed of NHTSA’s findings, but a Toyota spokesman confirmed to the Journal that the agency’s findings matched their own. Toyota says that beyond analyzing black box data, the company has also tested for electromagnetic interference with its electronic throttle assemblies and encountered no problems worse than radio static The company and its CEO have publicly refused to blame customers for the accidents, even if the evidence points towards driver error. Toyota has gone into overdrive as it works to repair its tattered safety and reliability image.
A NHTSA spokeswoman declined comment when contacted by the Journal, saying only that the agency is continuing to investigate the issue and that it would not comment until the full investigation in partnership with the National Academy of Sciences and NASA is complete. That report isn’t expected for several months.
Should the report accurately describe NHTSA’s findings, it would closely mirror in the infamous Audi 5000 sudden acceleration case of the 1980s. A government-sponsored report released in 1989 found driver error at fault, thanks in part to pedals mounted closely together and the relative ease of shifting to Drive with the throttle mistakenly floored. The incident lead to the implementation of interlocks that force the driver to step on the brake pedal before they can shift out of Park. The Toyota scandal has likewise led to a new brake override function that disables the throttle when the brake pedal is depressed.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Until TOYOTA adds the sensors to their so-called “perfect” electronic throttle and can prove that they can sense a condition that has a runaway full throttle condition with brakes applied and no indication of the accelerator sensors showing a depressed accelerator they are puffing smoke. I survived 6 SUA indcidents and would be willing to take a lie detector test. Would anyone in Toyota.read on.The Driver side of the Toyota SUA Story (that rarely gets reported)Following is a summary of the SUA experiences I have had between 2004 and 2006 on a Lexus LS400. I am sick and tired of hearing the constant mantra that the driver is at fault. Finally some justice was served when Lee was released from prison as a result of the legal system finally listening to the driver experience and actually believed what they heard to the extent that reasonable doubt could be established. There is an overwhelming flow of self serving and unintelligent comments from Toyota, the media and self proclaimed experts who have not experienced an SUA. The worst is the assumption that because Toyota has not been able to replicate the problem “It must be the drivers fault.” I am sure that everyone knows the definition of “assume.” The burden of proof should be on Toyota to prove that they can capture an SUA event that includes a wide open throttle, coupled with sensing a braking or accelerator action. None of these “driver did it” statements reflect a rudimentary knowledge of statistics or the difficulties of troubleshooting problems caused by intermittent performance. I can make this statement because I have lived through 6 SUA incidents between 2004 and 2006. I have written many times to various people, including Jim Lentz of Toyota, concerning this problem to no avail. Toyota knows perfectly well what is happening but chooses not to acknowledge the problem rather than pay the huge legal bills that would come from the many lawsuits. Furthermore I am an electrical engineer that has spent over 20 years in chasing similar intermittent problems in the computer industry. The SUA’s are a statistical problem that requires some rudimentary knowledge of statistics and signal to noise theory to solve. Various pundits, pointing at driver blame, have no such knowledge or appreciation and have not researched the subject to the extent necessary to make an informed opinion. Problems like this are rare and may happen once every 1000 hours or even months or years. Who can predict a lightening strike which is a good analogy? In my case, the first series of 3 incidents in 2004 were about 300 hours apart. The second in 2006 were about the same occurrence separation. Toyota told me the same thing as all other victims have heard —- there was no evidence of the occurrence —- incidentally I told them there would be no record. Why? Because in attempting to successfully chase intermittents, with zero predictability, you must have incorporated in the car’s design, “sensing” that would, for instance, look for a condition of open throttle and simultaneous braking application and no accelerator application. Since Toyota couldn’t detect an occurrence just proves that they haven’t designed the sensing into the electronics to do it. Toyota should have to prove by showing test data that they could capture the condition if it occurred. Procedurally they should force that condition into their computer system and show that they can capture the occurrence. It is ridiculous to “assume” that because there was no such evidence that the driver must be at fault. This is analogous to blaming the victim of a lightening strike for the fact they got hit. This should have been challenged by the legal team in all these cases — it wasn’t — they were incompetent. In the case of the computer I worked on (Univac 1107) in the early ’60′s at least we knew when a failure happened by the parity checking system that was active. Even then, when we knew we had failures, it took 6-7 months to correct all the causes because we couldn’t make them repeat until we isolated those causes by using troubleshooting and failure analysis techniques. There were numerous noise sources that had to be eliminated (conducted noise, radiated noise, ground noise, arc welder noise, radar, etc). The worst one was sensitivity of the storage drum to temperature variations when air conditioning was turned on and off. That took close to 7 months to find. These were all sources that were outside the anticipated problems expected in doing the original computer design. During that year, in trying to give birth to the 1107, all of management was on a 24 hour day 7 days a week to solve this problem. Toyota should invoke such an effort and look “outside of the box” in trying to explain what is happening. But the first thing they MUST DO is prove they can capture the occurrence because it is happening. They just haven’t figured out how to sense the fact that it occurs. Like all the descriptions by other victims, I had to put both feet on the brake and brace by pulling on the steering wheel, to try and keep it in check. It leapt forward 3 times (in about 3 seconds) before I could get the shift into neutral. In all incidents I stopped about 6″ to a foot from the car in front of me (obviously my feet were on the brake to stop — not the accelerator). In my case, when I shifted back into gear, it no longer had the symptoms. Toyota diagnostics, even calling in the experts from Chicago, showed that nothing happened. Moreover, in the history of these events, there is plenty of evidence that SUA’s were real if anyone actually did their home work. Not counting my incident, there were other cases where two different owners of the same car had similar SUA incidents. Both discontinued driving that car. Again Toyota could not replicate the problem. In another occurrence a driver with an active SUA incident drove the car into a Toyota dealership by alternating between the car in neutral and full throttle. He pulled into the dealership, put it in neutral and the engine was running at full throttle. The dealer tech verified that the floor mat was removed but was unable to stop the wide open throttle and was forced to shut the vehicle off. The same car brought in to the dealer, for a previous incident, revealed no problems when diagnostics were run on the computer. This occurred at the dealership and they claimed that they didn’t have a problem. Give me a break! Toyota offered to replace the accelerator and throttle assembly for this “nonproblem.” Yet again, there was another incident in San Diego where a family got killed in a loaner car. The week before the previous user of that car had a similar incident that, luckily, didn’t result in death. An explanation for all of these could be that the computer controlling the system “hangs up.” Who hasn’t experienced the typical “Blue Screen” error where the computer hangs and has to be rebooted to recover? If that happens the computer clock stops being active and any data that occurs during that time will not be recorded. I understand that even fighter planes that are now all fly by wire systems have a manual override to cope with such computer errors.The below report offers more details. Sincerely,Norm Talsoe MY SUA ExperienceBeing a survivor of 6 SUA incidents in a 2000 LS400 I personally know that Toyota has a Sudden Unintended Acceleration (SUA) electronic throttle failure problem. There may be several other causes for SUA’s, but among them has to be the throttle failure. Toyota’s defense: they have never found any evidence of an electronic failure so it has to be the drivers fault. My SUA experience proves to me that they have not yet been able to capture the failure events with their diagnostics. That being true, they can’t even begin to solve a problem they haven’t been able to see. Failure evidence comes from the complaint statistics that have been compiled over the years. In one case, the original owner of an LS400, Peter Boddaert, had 3 episodes, sold his car and the second owner, Mark Pinnock, also experienced 3 incidents with the same car. Pinnock had to discontinue driving it. This fact, coupled with my own experience, substantiate that Toyota has an electronic throttle problem. Further proof: In another bizarre example a driver began to experience an SUA event with his Avalon but was able to reach a dealer where, with the gear in neutral, the engine continued to operate at full throttle. The dealer tech verified that the floor mat was removed but was unable to stop the wide open throttle and was forced to shut the vehicle off. The same car brought in to the dealer, for a previous incident, revealed no problems when diagnostics were run on the computer. The dealer eventually offered to replace the throttle body, accelerator pedal and associated sensors free of charge to the driver after the second incident. An interesting solution for a problem Toyota claims doesn’t exist.NHTSA never pursued the requests for investigation. How Toyota can continue to claim they have no problem with the electronic throttle is beyond me. The above examples clearly show that they, “indeed”, have a problem.What the Symptoms Tell Us My 6 SUA incidents with a 2000 Lexus LS400 occurred between 2004 and 2006. The symptoms were: starting from a stop with my foot on the brake, as I removed my foot but before getting to the accelerator, the car jumped to, what felt like, full throttle. Since, before releasing the brake, the engine was idling normally it suggests the accelerator position sensors were delivering the proper signal to the Electronic Control Module (ECM). After releasing the brake the engine went to full throttle and tried to leap forward causing me to put both feet on the brake. At this point it is clear that the ECM CPU’s were no longer responding to the accelerator which hadn’t been touched after releasing the brake. The position sensors should still be sending an idle message to the CPU. It appears that releasing the brake sent some unknown signal to the CPU that caused it to “latch up” or freeze (in a full throttle state). The car leapt forward 3 times, moving about 1 foot each time before I was able to shift to neutral. In all cases, luckily, I was able to stop just before hitting whatever was in front of me. The incidents each took only about 3-4 seconds. Once in neutral the car again idled normally because the CPU again was tied to the accelerator sensors that still were in the idle position. I would speculate that when the EMC CPU was frozen it could not accept inputs from the sensors i.e., the system was frozen during the time any message was trying to be sent. Once the system went back to normal the diagnostics showed everything ok since the frozen CPU had not received any failure message. Guess what? “No Trouble Found” The point to be made here is that there has to be a simple redundant system outside the electronic throttle that was immune to whatever froze it. It could interrogate the electronic throttle system, determine it was frozen and be able to release it. However, this may be easier said then done.When our home computers freeze, we are forced to reboot. When this happens in a fighter plane I understand that there is an emergency button that can be pressed to allow manual control until the fly-by-wire system can be reengaged. Perhaps the equivalent for this problem is the brake override solution. But a concern among safety experts is that the brake override software, which has been described as a final solution to the problem of unintended acceleration (SUA), may cause more problems by adding a new layer of software to the system. “These fixes are not dealing with the root causes of the problem,” said Sean Kane, president of Safety Research and Strategies Inc. Besides if the brake override solution relies on the CPU that gets frozen what assurance is there that it will work?In trying to troubleshoot the electronic throttle it should be possible to cycle the logic inputs for the throttle system through all possible state combinations to see if a frozen open throttle could be invoked at a particular input combination. If that condition could be replicated it would then be possible to work toward a solution. I don’t know if this would work for a potential software bug. Ideally this should be done on the throttle system of a known SUA offender. The culprit looks to be the CPU used by the ECM since the SUA events have occurred for virtually all of the automobile industry. Design differences by different manufacturers would make the throttle more or less sensitive to triggering an SUA event. The evidence sits in all of our homes in the form of a home computer. Who hasn’t experienced a frozen system?A Statistical Problem The SUA events rarely occur, being maybe only .005% or less of all known failures. Because it is so rare, it is equally difficult to make sure that when a SUA happens, you can capture the fact that it did. The above explanation is the only one I can think of that agrees with the SUA symptoms. Even when a car having the problem is evaluated it would be very difficult to find the exact failure mode that causes the runaway full throttle. In a normal production car I don’t think you would have a prayer. I think Toyota is between a rock and a hard place. They know they have a problem, they don’t know the cause, can’t duplicate it and they can’t admit it. If they did they would immediately be guilty in all the pending law suits. Their best out is to implement the brake-override. They will continue to deny any electronic problem because it would be cheaper than admitting it. If they find it in the future, they will correct it and in the meantime, hopefully, the brake override will hide the problem.N. Talsoe
Once again, this proves just how terrible drivers eduction in the U.S. is. The government needs to stop contradicting itself by mandating safety features that add huge amounts of weight to cars and then telling automakers to improve fuel economy. Stop adding safety features and start going after the real problem: the DRIVERS. Improve our terrible drivers education system and we’ll see the amount of accidents decrease drastically and incidents like this all but disappear.