Report: Probes Suggest Drivers to Blame in Toyota Sudden Speeding Crashes

VOA News
July 14, 2010 at 11:03 am

Japanese automaker Toyota says it has found that some of the cases of unintended acceleration of its vehicles were caused by human error.

Toyota spokesman Mike Michels says an internal investigation of data from 2,000 reports of unintended acceleration found the driver stepped on the gas pedal instead of the brake pedal.

Michels’ comments followed a report in the Wall Street Journal that said a similar investigation by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reached the same conclusions.

The automaker recalled more than eight million vehicles around the world during the past year because of reports of unintended acceleration. The problem has been linked to as many as 89 traffic fatalities since 2000.

The problem has been variously blamed on faulty electronics, the accelerator pedal becoming stuck, and a faulty design that caused the pedal to get snagged in the floor mats.

Some information in this story was provided by AP, AFP, Bloomberg and Reuters.