Toyota's runaway-car worries may not stop at floor mats Part 2
"This is Toyota's Firestone," said Sean Kane, president of Safety Research & Strategies, a Rehoboth, Mass., auto safety consulting firm. He was referring to the public relations disaster that hit Bridgestone/Firestone almost 10 years ago over defective tires that caused a series of fatal accidents.
"Right now," Kane said, "when you say sudden acceleration, Toyota is it."
In addition to Saylor and Lastrella, the San Diego crash killed Saylor's wife, Cleofe Lastrella, and their only child, 13-year-old daughter Mahala.
Signaling how seriously the company takes the incident, Toyota President Akio Toyoda made an apology this month while meeting with the Japanese news media.
"Customers bought our cars because they thought they were the safest," he said. "But now we have given them cause for grave concern. I can't begin to express my remorse."
One remedy being considered by Toyota implicitly acknowledges what critics have been saying for almost 10 years: that the company's highly computerized engine control system lacks a fail-safe mechanism that can quickly extinguish sudden acceleration events, whether they are caused by floor mats, driver errors or even unknown defects in the electronic control system, as alleged in some lawsuits.
Reports of sudden acceleration in Toyota vehicles has resulted in nine federal inquiries and investigations since 2000, two of which determined that there were improperly positioned floor mats. Another found a loose part in Sienna minivans, and yet another probe remains open. The rest were dismissed with no findings of equipment problems.
In most Toyota vehicles, the floor mats are held in place by two clips, which can come loose. Toyota offers a standard carpeted floor mat and an optional rubber version. Both mats have a cutout around the accelerator pedal. The vehicle driven by Saylor had a rubber floor mat, but Toyota said it was for a different model of Lexus.
Since the San Diego crash, Toyota has urged all its customers to remove their floor mats as an interim fix. But longer term, Toyota spokesman Brian Lyons said, the company is examining significant design changes.
One possible remedy is to redesign the accelerator pedal to make it harder to get caught by a floor mat, he said. Another potential fix, he said, involves reprogramming the engine's computer to automatically cut power when a driver brakes while the gas pedal is depressed.
Such fail-safes are needed, auto experts say, because sudden acceleration can cause drivers to panic, diminishing their ability to take swift action -- such as shutting off the engine or shifting into neutral.
If anybody should have known how to stop an out-of-control car, it was Saylor, who was trained in emergency and high-speed driving as a 19-year CHP veteran. But a close look at the Lexus ES 350 raises questions about whether the car's very design may have compromised Saylor's skills.
One obvious line of defense is to simply shut off the engine, a step that may not be intuitive on the ES 350. The car has a push-button start system, activated by the combination of a wireless electronic fob carried by the driver and a button on the dashboard.
But once the vehicle is moving, the engine will not shut off unless the button is held down for a full three seconds -- a period of time in which Saylor's car would have traveled 528 feet. A driver may push the button repeatedly, not knowing it requires a three-second hold.
"When you are dealing with an emergency, you can't wait three seconds for the car to respond at 120 miles an hour," said Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Auto Safety.
The ES 350 Saylor was driving that day was a loaner provided to him by Bob Baker Lexus when he took his family's Lexus in for servicing. It's unclear whether Saylor's own car had the same feature or whether he was aware of the shutdown procedure. Bob Baker Lexus did not return calls.
That procedure is explained deep in the owners manual. In a text box labeled "! Caution," Toyota tells owners, "Do not touch the 'power' switch while driving." But under the warning it adds, "If you have to make an emergency stop, press and hold the 'power' switch for more than three seconds."
Lyons, the Toyota spokesman, said: "I think the text is valid. What I'd prefer it to say is to explain that you'll lose power assist [for] brakes and steering if you do so."
The shutdown procedure reflects a larger problem: As auto manufacturers adopt increasingly complex electronic features, it becomes more difficult to explain how they work, said Paul Green, a human factors expert at the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute. A study by the institute found that in some cases, owners manuals would have to run up to 1,000 pages to fully disclose everything.
"In the past, systems were pretty simple," Green said. "You put a key in the lock and turn it. Now we have a fob with functionality."
