Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, posted documents purporting to show that Toyota held onto safety documents it was supposed to turn over to opponents in litigation. Turns out the documents had been shoddily snipped, edited and mischaracterized to advance the charges against the automaker. [Christine Tierney, Detroit News via Henry Payne, NRO; more background on whistleblower controversy, The Recorder last year]
Posts Tagged ‘Toyota’
On 770 KTTH-Seattle at 4:10 PM Pacific today, talking Toyota
My Toyota op-ed is going viral, with dozens of retweets, and listings on the front pages of Hot Air and reddit—not to mention an Instalink. And Alex Tabarrok tests my numbers at Marginal Revolution.
Update: Don’t miss Megan McArdle’s comprehensive take.
“I am not afraid of my Toyota Prius”
I expand on my earlier post in today’s Washington Examiner, including my skepticism of the conventional reporting on the James Sikes incident.
Michael Fumento is also on the case on his blog and in the LA Times; see also Richard Schmidt in the New York Times on the last generation of sudden acceleration.
Update: Fumento goes farther on the James Sikes story than I did. I also found the idea that Sikes reached for the accelerator while driving implausible after trying to repeat the experiment in a (parked!) Prius.
Toyota acceleration: why I’m skeptical
Dating back to 1992 models, LA Times reporters found 56 deaths reported to NHTSA over the course of 19 model-years. If Toyota is suffering from electronic problems, these electronic problems should affect all drivers equally. If Toyota sudden acceleration is caused by driver pedal misapplication, then we should expect to see a disproportionate number of elderly and short drivers. Unfortunately, we don’t have driver heights, and in only 24 of the 56 cases, did the Times list the age of the driver.
The ages: 18, 21, 22*, 32, 34, 44, 45, 47, 56, 57, 58, 60, 61, 63, 66, 68, 71**, 72, 72, 77, 79, 83, 85, 89.
*Passenger victim was 22 and “friend” of driver.
**Passenger victim was 71 and married to husband-driver for 46 years.
The median age is 60.5; the majority of drivers are 60 or older; a third are older than 70. And I left out the case of a driver who was the son of a 94-year-old victim rather than guesstimate his age to be 65. That looks suspiciously like the makeup of Audi sudden acceleration cases, and a lot like driver error to me. Color me skeptical. Very very skeptical.
Update, March 12: Megan McArdle has done some very impressive journalism following up on my work to fill in the gaps that the LA Times left out. Here’s her spreadsheet. (McArdle also has the guts to mention the disproportionate number of immigrants in the sample, which I didn’t.) Her report makes me realize I made a mistake in the sequence above: I confused an 89-year-old passenger with a 71-year-old driver. In addition, the driver I conservatively estimated to be 71 above turns out to have been 75. And McArdle says that a driver I listed as 61 is 60. Here’s McArdle’s more complete and more accurate sequence; I’ve estimated three of the ages where they were not listed:
18, 21, 21*, 20s**, 32, 34, 36, 44, 45, 47, 56, 56, 57, 58, 60, 60, 63, 60s***, 66, 68, 71, 72, 72, 75, 75, 77, 77, 79, 83, 87
*Driver was with 21-year-old friend
**Driver had girlfriend and young daughter
***Driver was picking up 67-year-old friend for church.
This actually strengthens my case: the median age is 60, 16 out of 30 (or 15 out of 29) are 60 or older (as compared to 16% of drivers in all automotive fatalities)—that’s a relative risk of over 6. We’ve gone from a small sample size of 24 to a slightly less small sample size of 29-30, improving statistical significance.
Separately, reader G. writes:
Hey Ted: one more data point on why Mr. Prius Acceleration is likely a fake — the stretch of I8 where the incident occurred. If you were to pick the one stretch of highway in San Diego County where you could go 94 MPH with almost no traffic and almost no curves, that is the stretch. At about 15 miles east of San Diego that road becomes deserted at all hours — it runs out into the Imperial Valley and then into Arizona. I have driven it tens of times, at all times of day, and never hit traffic unless there was a Border Patrol checkpoint. It is also almost straight– with some very moderate curves and some hills. Counter-data points: (a) About 60 miles east of San Diego (heading East) you hit some severe curves and a steep downhill grade as the road heads out of the mountains and onto the desert floor. I wouldn’t want to head into that at 94 MPH, even if I was faking the acceleration; and (b) dude is from Jacumba, which is on that highway (he didn’t drive from another part of the area just to drive on the road.
Staged footage in ABC News Toyota “test”
Looks like network news departments are up to some of their old tricks. Gawker has the story (“How ABC News’ Brian Ross Staged His Toyota Death Ride”) and followup (“ABC News’ Toyota Test Fiasco”).
In the chapter “Trial Lawyer TV” in my book The Rule of Lawyers (St. Martin’s 2003, not online, why don’t you buy a copy?) I found that not only had the networks seemed to have learned nothing from the notorious 1993 “Dateline NBC” fiasco, they had actually gone back to using some of the same expert witnesses, “consumer” groups and staging techniques that had gotten them in trouble in the first place. So I must say nothing surprises me.
More: Neal Boudette, “Toyota slams ABC News on pedals”, WSJ:
At a news conference, engineering consultants hired by Toyota also showed they are able to cause vehicles made by three other auto makers to rev suddenly by making the same electronic modifications used by a college professor who was the subject of the ABC report, and who testified before Congress last month.
Other coverage: Matt Hardigree, Jalopnik; Washington Post (quoting Edmunds.com senior editor Bill Visnic as saying the carmaker “really chipped away at the evidence provided by Dr. Gilbert during the congressional hearings”); Safety Research & Strategies of Rehoboth, Mass., a trial lawyer consulting firm, “funded Gilbert’s test”, according to Business Week; Gilbert’s response at Barrons.com.
March 4 roundup
- “Toyota Recall: Scandal, Media Circus, and Stupid Drivers” [Dushane, Car & Driver via Prof. Bainbridge] Some parallels with Audi sudden-acceleration panic [Michael Fumento, who also questions recent numbers] More: Mike Allen, Popular Mechanics via Instapundit (“why widespread theories about electrical throttle problems and electromagnetic interference are misguided”); and Fumento on braking capacity.
- Overly hot sandwich caused $2 million worth of damages, he says, though it’s true he didn’t seek immediate medical attention [Lowering the Bar, earlier]
- Rick Esenberg on judicial recusal wars in Wisconsin and nationally [Point of Law first and second posts] In Circle of Greed, lawyer/felon Lerach flings recusal issue against late father of Carly Fiorina [Gerstein, Politico; our earlier Lerach coverage]
- And more: Notwithstanding earlier denials, Lerach did lobby President Clinton to veto securities litigation reform act [Gerstein, Politico]
- Claim by Connecticut AG and Senate candidate Richard Blumenthal: lawsuits he files “actually create jobs” [Wood, PoL]
- Setback for prolific patent litigant Bender [Zura via Joe Mullin, related]
- Following complaints by traditional video store competitors, prosecutor threatens criminal charges unless DVD rental kiosks remove R- and even PG-rated films [Indianapolis Star via Indiana Law Blog]
- Lawyers send clients to chiropractor, he sends clients to lawyers, circle of life continues [Louisville Courier-Journal via Legal Blog Watch]
March 2 roundup
- “Trial Lawyers vs. Toyota” [Holman Jenkins, Jr./WSJ] Rep. Towns’s hearing didn’t even pretend to be other than showcase for trial bar [Wood, PoL; Henry Payne coverage in National Review here, here, here, and here] And make way for the inevitable investor suits [Daily Breeze]
- “Obama open to curbing medical malpractice suits” [AP/WaPo] Related: The Hill; advice from Newsweek’s Evan Thomas [Jim Pinkerton]
- Why doesn’t the Securities and Exchange Commission hire finance people? “They’re overlawyered. They’re poisoned by lawyers.” [Harry Markopolos interviewed by Deborah Solomon, N.Y. Times]
- “Plaintiffs Lawyer’s ‘Reptile’ Strategy Bites Back” [Fulton County Daily Report] Plus: Max Kennerly wonders why it was admitted into evidence;
- “Facebook plus divorce equals flammable situation” [Tampa Bay Online]
- Officials get wined, dined and more: “Paying public pensions to sue” [Forbes]
- Parents sue many defendants in Colorado ice cream shop crash [Denver Post]
- Called for jury duty yesterday, and Tweeting the results: arts critic/biographer Terry Teachout and conservative writer Michelle Malkin.
Toyota show trials, cont’d
I’ve got a link roundup at Point of Law and have updated the earlier post as well; it seems NBC News led off its broadcast with 11 straight minutes on the carmaker.
“The Real Scandal Behind the Toyota Recall”
Some views you probably won’t be hearing during today’s highly orchestrated Capitol Hill events [Ed Wallace, Business Week] Regarding that “declining quality at Toyota” meme [“The Truth About NHTSA Complaints,” TTAC] Sudden runup in count of deaths “linked to” possible Toyota acceleration is from newly filed reports on old cases [Fumento/CEI] Commentary from Richard Epstein [Forbes.com via Damon Root, Reason “Hit and Run”] Former trial lawyer lobbyist David Strickland, now helping lead charge against Toyota as NHTSA administrator, was principal author of ghastly CPSIA law [Amend The CPSIA] Also: links to ongoing Point of Law coverage.
New at Point of Law
Things you’re missing if you aren’t checking out my other site:
- Iowa federal judge hits EEOC with $4.5 million attorney fee award over “sue first, ask questions later” litigation strategy;
- Jim Copland continues his weeklong blogging of Trial Lawyers Inc.: K Street with posts on the plaintiff’s bar’s Washington, D.C. presence (with discussion of CPSIA, employment litigation, qui tam, and arbitration, among other topics); state lobbying; and public relations, including legal academics, the media, and consumer groups;
- Hmm: House committee conveniently subpoenas Toyota defense documents that plaintiffs had been seeking to unseal (and more on Toyota);
- Obama administration plans crackdown to make more employers reclassify independent contractors as employees;
- Trial bar stirs pot in Florida politics;
- Feds swoop down on 2003 settlement to demand that parties reimburse Medicare as provided by retroactive law.