Driver error, not Toyota defects
August 3, 2010 – 2:36 am by JohnTo the surprise of absolutely no one who was paying attention, the data recorders in the Toyota vehicles that supposedly accelerated out of control indicate that the drivers were responsible, not the accelerators, brake pedals, or electronics. I remember the Regular Guys radio show in Atlanta predicting, when these faulty Toyota stories were big news, that almost all of these accidents were actually the drivers’ fault, not Toyota’s. I concurred, and I think we were all right.
Remember the CEO of Toyota standing in front of Congress and, in broken English, apologizing profusely and practically begging for America to give them another chance and believe in Toyota again? And how some congressmen, I don’t remember which, berated him and his company and basically tried to start a nationwide smear campaign against them? We won’t be hearing any apologies from them, nor can they undo the damage they helped cause to a perfectly responsible company that makes cars that are apparently about as safe any other company’s.
I think it’s safe to say that, in the minds of many senators, congressmen, and bureaucrats, the desire to bolster American car companies at the expense of the suddenly vulnerable Toyota played no small part in their attacks on Toyota before any solid evidence was available. Do you doubt that such favoritism will become commonplace and even more shameless as the Imperial Federal Government gains more influence, control, and eventually ownership of nominally private businesses? Of course government agents will make decisions based on politics and not necessarily economics, justice, good business sense, or even common sense. This kind of dishonesty, this disregard for the facts, the complete lack of importance placed on efficiency or fairness are characteristic of government-run economies when decision-making is political, so we can expect a lot more of this in the future, not less.
