CORPORATE CRIME REPORTER
Toyota
Sudden Acceleration Crashes Linked to 89 Deaths
24 Corporate Crime Reporter 22, May 31, 2010
Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles involved in sudden unintended acceleration crashes
may be linked to 89 deaths since 2000, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
(NHTSA) said last week.
That’s up from 52 deaths last reported in March.
Toyota faces scores of product liability and class actions lawsuits over the issue.
Toyota has paid a fine of $16.4 million for failing to alert NHTSA about certain defects related to the sudden acceleration.
There is an ongoing criminal investigation
Byron Bloch is an auto safety expert based in Potomac, Maryland.
Bloch says the acceleration problem at Toyota could have been nailed down earlier.
But for political problems at NHTSA.
“In that time period 2002 to 2008, NHTSA opened and then quickly closed multiple investigations on unintended acceleration in various Toyota vehicles, sometimes in just three months,” Bloch told Corporate Crime Reporter in an interview last week.
“That is suspect.”
“During that period, the Bush administration appointed auto industry people to positions at NHTSA. You had company biased attorneys at the highest levels at NHTSA.”
“At the same time, two employees from NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation went over to work for Toyota.”
“You had former NHTSA employees working at Toyota. They would be in charge of responding to NHTSA.”
“And they would go back and have meetings with their former colleagues in the Office of Defects Investigation.”
“Those two gentlemen are Christopher Santucci and Christopher Tinto. They both worked on responding to NHTSA about sudden acceleration.”
The modern auto safety movement, launched in the mid-1960s by Ralph Nader, has been successful – up to a point, Bloch says.
“Let’s look at the fatality rate per hundred million miles traveled,” Bloch says. “In the early 1970s, that number was between three and four. It’s currently down to about 1.2 or so.”
In the mid-1970s, 50,000 Americans were dying every year in car crashes.
Now, it’s down to about 34,000 a year.
When Bloch first got involved in the late 1960s, he was hoping the auto safety movement would take the number down to approaching zero.
“It has been successful, but it’s nowhere near acceptable to say that about 34,000 Americans are being killed on the highways each year,” Bloch said.
“Plus, hundreds of thousands of debilitating injuries, including being the number one cause of quadriplegics in the United States – that’s disgraceful.”
“In 40 years, our vast capabilities in technology, design, innovation – have not enabled us to get remarkably close to zero fatalities and to a significantly reduced number of severe debilitating injuries.”
Bloch has been at the center of many auto safety cases throughout the years – perhaps most famously the homicide prosecution of Ford Motor Company.
In 1978 in northern Indiana, three teenaged girls were killed while riding in their Pinto.
The Pinto was rear ended at a slow speed. The girls were burned to death – not crushed to death.
A Republican prosecutor – Michael Cosentino – goes to a grand jury and argues for a involuntary manslaughter charge.
“When I read about it in the Los Angeles Times, I contacted Michael Cosentino. I told him about my background. I said – yes, he was correct in his assumption that the fuel tank was needlessly lethal.”
“I could come to Indiana and document what Ford knew and when they knew it about the unsafe, vulnerable design of the Pinto fuel tank.”
“Ford knew about it year after year, but did nothing to correct the problem.”
“I ended up testifying to the grand jury. And testifying at the actual trial.”
Cosentino brought a homicide charge against the company. There was a trial. The company was found not guilty after trial.
“The company was acquitted,” Bloch said. “And in that case, by my estimate, only about ten percent of the evidence that should have been shown to the jury was shown to the jury.”
“The judge at the time ruled that the Pinto at issue was being treated like a murder weapon. And only those documents that specifically mentioned that model year and particular model of Pinto would be admissible.”
“All of the documentation of Ford testing Pintos – the prototypes, early production models, including testing Pintos with a safety fuel cell bladder to prevent leakage – none of that was shown to the jury.”
“So, the jury was kept from seeing Ford’s extensive internal corporate knowledge of the lethality of the Pinto fuel tank. And how simply and easily Ford could have made a much safer fuel tank – even if they left the gas tank in that same position, as vulnerable as it was near the rear bumper.”
“Ford had tested the Pinto with safety bladder liners in the tank. And the Ford documents said – even though the fuel tank was punctured in puncture prone places, that thanks to the bladder liner, there was no leakage.”
“Ford had tested the remedy. The remedy worked. But they kept it out of production.”
Why is it that given the level of recklessness among companies – why aren’t there more of these kinds of criminal charges?
“Politics and money trumps compassion and constructive measures for safety. You see it time and again – whether in coal mine tragedies, in many vehicle defect investigations, the current issue with BP in the Gulf.”
“Politics and money have trumped compassion and safety in many of these areas. Otherwise we would see more of these criminal prosecutions.”
[For a complete transcript of the Interview with Byron Bloch, see 24 Corporate Crime Reporter 22(11), print edition only.]
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