Not for the first (or fifty-first) time, the California paper acts as an uncritical stenographer of Litigation Lobby claims — then waits until paragraph 13 to advise readers that NHTSA, not exactly the friendliest witness these days, backs the automaker’s position on the question of the “black box” data. More: AP.
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The major problem with the black box theory of sudden accelleration is the lack of cases. Events were accumulated for 100 million tears of exposure.
Putting in a wrong floor mat would be very infrequent so the actual exposure to the risk would be commensuate with the reports.
Suppose the floor mat did hold down the accellorator. How would that effect the brake. Why couldn’t a police officer figure out that the floor mat was a problem. I did when a rubber mat got caught up with my pedals many, many years ago. I used my feet to push the mat out of the way.
The case is very strange. Bloomberg News reported that lawyers claim defect in the acceleration mechanism as the cause of the accident, which Toyota denied. It would have been better if Bloomberg reported the total absence of evidence to support the lawyers claim.