THE ONLY FIX IS TO REPLACE THE DRIVERS:

Toyota: Recalls won't totally fix gas pedal issues (Ken Thomas and Larry Margasak, 2/23/10, ASSOCIATED PRESS)

The president of Toyota's U.S. operations acknowledged to skeptical lawmakers on Tuesday that the company's recalls of millions of its cars may "not totally" solve the problem of sudden and dangerous acceleration.

"We are vigilant and we continue to look for potential causes," Toyota's James Lentz told a congressional panel. However, he repeated his company's position that unexpected acceleration in some of the company's most popular cars and trucks was caused by one of two problems — misplaced floor mats and sticking accelerator pedals.

He insisted electronic systems connected to the gas pedal and fuel line did not contribute to the problem, drawing sharp criticism from lawmakers who said such a possibility should be further explored — and from a tearful woman driver who could not stop her runaway Lexus.

Manufacturing the Audi Scare (Peter Huber, DECEMBER 18,1989, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL)

If you're the kind of driver who sometimes has trouble finding the brakes in your car, you should be driving an Audi. Last month, in 35mph crash tests of an airbage-quipped Audi 100, the mannequin in the driver's seat suffered the lowest crash force ever recorded by the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration, NHTSA, in this kind of test.

And yet, according to the Center for Auto Safety--a self-styled public interest organization that sells its research to plaintiffs' lawyers--the Audi 100's predecessor, the Audi 5000, was as deadly as the Audi 100 is safe. It exhibited "sudden acceleration," a fatal propensity to take off at full speed even as the terrified driver rammed the brake pedal to the floor.

CBS's "60 Minutes" ran a devastating expose of the Audi 5000. Audi customers fled. Lawyers cashed in. The American public was saved, yet again, from the perils of technology gone awry. Only one little noticed footnote remains at the end: There was nothing wrong with the car.

The Audi story is by now, dismally familiar. "Sudden acceleration" accidents occurred when the transmission was shifted out of "park." The driver always insisted he was standing on the brake, but after the crash the brakes always worked perfectly. A disproportionate number of accidents involved drivers new to the vehicle. When an idiotproof shift was installed so that a driver could not shift out of park if his foot was on the accelerator, reports of sudden acceleration plummeted.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 23, 2010 6:35 PM