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September 1986: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the government body in charge of keeping the roads safe, orders its first recall of Toyota cars because of "speed control" problems, according to the NHTSA database (though defects with the two 1982 models involved were related to faulty cruise control). A second investigation into sudden-acceleration dangers with Toyota vehicles takes place this year...
...shows that Toyota executives first became aware of a possible problem 10 years ago - a scenario Toyota disputes - when the company replaced the floor mats on Lexus models sold in Great Britain. "There have been six different defect petitions [filed with the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration, or NHTSA]," says Ditlow. (See the top 10 product recalls...
...NHTSA came to a similar finding. After conducting an extensive technical review of the issue, including interviews with consumers who had complained of unwanted acceleration, NHTSA concluded that "the only defect trend related to vehicle speed control in the subject vehicles involved the potential for accelerator pedals to become trapped near the floor by out-of-position or inappropriate floor-mat installations...
Toyota saw that as vindication. "Six times in the past six years NHTSA has undertaken an exhaustive review of allegations of unintended acceleration on Toyota and Lexus vehicles and six times the agency closed the investigation without finding any electronic engine control system malfunction to be the cause of unintended acceleration," the company noted in a statement...
Meanwhile, the CAS is calling for more draconian measures. Now that it has uncovered the NHTSA research, it is filing a petition calling for all new cars to have a device installed that allows only emergency calls. "We do not see how [NHTSA] can turn down a problem that's rapidly turning out to be as bad as drunk driving," says Clarence Ditlow, CAS's executive director. "We're asking that technology be installed in cars to disable their cell phones whenever you shift out of park...