Copyright by the New York Times

EDITORIAL - Toyota Still Doesn’t Get It
Copyright by the New York Times
Published: July 24, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/opinion/25sun2.html?ref=opinion


All automakers in the United States are required to report flaws in their vehicles to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration within five business days of detection. Despite the law, Toyota has repeatedly failed to report potentially deadly problems.

The latest omission to be brought to light — and not by the automaker — regards problems with steering wheel relay rods, which transmit changes in direction from the steering gearbox to the wheels. In 2004, Toyota issued a recall of 330,000 vehicles in Japan after complaints about cracking rods. It told American regulators that, because of different driving conditions, the problem did not affect Toyota cars in the United States. It said it had not received a single complaint in this country.

In 2005, Toyota notified the N.H.T.S.A. and issued a voluntary recall of nearly one million vehicles here because the steering rod could break. This year, lawyers for an Idaho family whose son died when his Toyota truck rolled over unearthed about 40 complaints about steering rod problems in the United States before the date of the Japanese recall.

That information prompted the N.H.T.S.A. to investigate whether Toyota neglected to inform it about the problem. Last month a federal grand jury asked for information about the steering wheel problems.

Drivers here complained for years about bouts of uncontrolled acceleration before Toyota finally determined that accelerator pedals were getting stuck in floor mats and grudgingly started recalling vehicles in 2007. In April, the N.H.T.S.A. fined the company $16.4 million — the statutory maximum — for failing to notify it promptly about sticky accelerator pedals.

In May, Toyota’s chief executive, Akio Toyoda, denied that the company withheld information about steering wheel problems from American regulators. Last week, a spokesman said Toyota was cooperating with the N.H.T.S.A. and the grand jury but declined to comment further.

Toyota has a lot to explain about why it delayed informing American regulators about the faulty rods — and why it told the N.H.T.S.A. it had received no complaints in the United States. The agency, meanwhile, has drafted outside experts to help investigate all possible causes of the sticky accelerator problem. What is clear right now is that Toyota, like all automakers, must abide by the legal disclosure rules. If a $16.4 million fine is not enough to change Toyota’s behavior, then Congress should give regulators a bigger stick to work with.