Toyota Recall: Scandal, Media Circus, and Stupid Drivers - Editorial - Car and Driver
Car and Driver has a rational and delightfully politically-incorrect take on the media circus about Toyota. One highlight: Even if the pedal were somehow stuck, floored, a Toyota Camry stops in a shorter distance than a Ford Taurus.
Excerpt:
How Big is This Problem?
"We're no Toyota apologists, but if you look past the media circus, the numbers don't reveal a meaningful problem. Every man, woman, and child in the U.S. has approximately a one-in-8000 chance of perishing in a car accident every year. Over a decade, that's about one in 800. Given the millions of cars included in the Toyota recalls and the fewer than 20 alleged deaths over the past decade, the alleged fatality rate is about one death per 200,000 recalled Toyotas.
Even if all the alleged deaths really are resultant from vehicle defects—highly unlikely—and even if all the worst things people are speculating about Toyotas are true, and you're driving one, and you aren't smart or calm enough to shift to neutral if the thing surges, you're still approximately 250 times likelier to die in one of these cars for reasons having nothing to do with unintended acceleration. So if you can muster the courage to get into a car and drive, the additional alleged risk of driving a Toyota is virtually negligible...
And later:
"The lack of a throttle kill is probably the explanation for Toyotas' higher reported rate of "unintended acceleration" than other brands. But it's critical to note that the lack of such a throttle kill isn't a defect. It isn't Toyota's responsibility to account for every possible stupid thing people might do in a car. Anyone so uncoordinated that they can't differentiate the pedals and operate them independently shouldn't be driving.
And this is going to sound uncharitable, but even if the recall dealing with potentially sticking pedals applies to a lot of Toyotas, why aren’t people just shifting into neutral? Even if the throttle really sticks fully open, it won't have any accelerative impact on the car if it's in neutral. By this point, if you have a Toyota (or any car), and you don't know to shift to neutral if the engine races unexpectedly, you're going to succumb to what can only be described as natural selection.
Some Context: Audi's "Unintended Acceleration"
In 1986, the television program 60 Minutes started Audi's "unintended acceleration" scandal. The show trotted out tearful people, recounted death and carnage, spoke to so-called experts, and generally made it seem like the vehicle in question, the Audi 5000, was a roving menace with a mind of its own. In the end, the U.S. government determined that every single so-called unintended acceleration accident was the result of driver error. Some speculated that because Audi's pedals were closer together than those of some other brands, people were too uncoordinated to choose the correct one. The pedal-placement issue Audi faced at that time parallels the throttle-kill issue Toyota faces now.
(From CD's earlier test of braking a car with a stuck pedal)
... brakes by and large can still overpower and rein in an engine roaring under full throttle. With the Camry’s throttle pinned while going 70 mph, the brakes easily overcame all 268 horsepower straining against them and stopped the car in 190 feet—that’s a foot shorter than the performance of a Ford Taurus without any gas-pedal problems.
As I recall the Audi scandal was started by a woman who'd accidentally run over--and killed--her own child, and decided to blame the car instead of accepting responsibility for her error. By the time she'd rewritten the history of the event in her own mind she'd become convinced it was the car's fault. I'm sure at that point she'd have passed a lie detector test.
Because human memory isn't a ROM, it's a hard drive.
The poet William Blake said "The fox blames the trap, not himself."
But not only is human memory prone to unacknowledged revision, the human mind is also prone to conspiracy theorizing.
We connect the dots--even when they're not connected--even when the connections we cook up are patently absurd.
Finally, in addition to us believing our memory is infallible and that everything is a plot, we're not just innumerate but evolved to perceive statistical probability in a deeply skewed way.
For example, all over the country parents drive their kids to school instead of letting them bike because someone kidnapped a child in Florida five years ago.
Unfortunately brainpower is metabolically costly, so we have as little as evolution "thinks" we need. Which ain't much. The Toyota scandal is another case in point.
And of course the commercial media maximize profits by exploiting all of these foibles, thus amplifying the effect of them.
Posted by: Ehkzu | February 24, 2010 at 01:08 PM
@Ehkzu. Good points. Perhaps it's a useful defense mechanism. I can't imagine the horror of running over your own child.
As for the Audi faux scandal, CBS's Sixty Minutes did a supposed expert test that reportedly demonstrated sudden acceleration in an Audi. Turns out the "expert" drilled a hole in the assembly and injected compressed air to fake the brakes causing acceleration.
On ABC News last night, the "chief investigative correspondent" had an expert "prove" that electronics were involved by deliberately shorting out a Toyota and showing he could make it accelerate. That's sort of like cutting the brake hoses to prove the brakes fail. The differences between MSM and pulp are shrinking.
Posted by: JimF | February 24, 2010 at 01:16 PM