Unintended Acceleration In Passenger Vehicles

Congress is considering legislation to strengthen federal regulation of auto safety. Contents of this report: (1) Intro.: Nat. Highway Traffic Safety Admin. (NHTSA); (2) Fed. Oversight of Auto Safety: Sudden Acceleration Complaints; Audi Historical Precedents; Toyota-Related Complaints Since 2000; NHTSA Response to Toyota Complaints; (3) Toyota: Toyota Corp. Structure; Black Box Avail.; Recall Impact on Toyota Sales; Toyota Lobbying; (4) Policy Issues and the Congressional Response: Does NHTSA Have Enough Resources for Defects Investigation?; Is the Toyota Issue a Sign of Broader Problems Within the Auto Industry?; Are Electronics and Software Testing Stringent Enough?; Electronic Throttle Problems. Illustrations.

"TRB has released the final version of TRB Special Report 308: The Safety Promise and Challenge of Automotive Electronics: Insights from Unintended Acceleration, which examines how the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) regulatory, research, and defect investigation programs can be strengthened to meet the safety assurance and oversight challenges arising from the expanding functionality and use of automotive electronics. The report gives particular attention to the NHTSA response to consumer complaints of vehicles accelerating unintentionally and to concerns that faulty electronic systems may have been to blame. The committee that produced the report found that the increasingly capable and complex electronics systems being added to automobiles present many opportunities for making driving safer but also present new demands for ensuring their safe performance. These safety assurance demands pertain both to the automotive industry development and deployment of electronics systems and to the safety oversight role of NHTSA. With regard to the latter, the committee recommends that NHTSA give explicit consideration to the oversight challenges arising from automotive electronics and that the agency develop and articulate a long term strategy for meeting these challenges."--Provided by publisher.

The U.S. Department of Transportation released results from an unprecedented ten-month study of potential electronic causes of unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) launched the study last spring at the request of Congress, and enlisted NASA engineers to conduct new research into whether electronic systems or electromagnetic interference played a role in incidents of unintended acceleration. NASA engineers found no electronic flaws in Toyota vehicles capable of producing the large throttle openings required to create dangerous high-speed unintended acceleration incidents. This book provides an analysis of the research by NASA engineers and the U.S. Department of Transportation into Toyota automobiles and the unintended acceleration episodes that have been reported.

In late 2009 Toyota became the subject of media and government scrutiny after multiple deaths and injuries were attributed to accidents resulting from the unintended and uncontrolled acceleration of its cars. Despite Toyota's voluntary recall of 4.2 million vehicles for floor mats that could jam the accelerator pedal and a later recall to increase the space between the gas pedal and the floor, the company insisted there was no underlying defect and defended itself against media reports and regulatory statements that said otherwise. This case examines Toyota's reaction as the crisis escalated.