"City mechanic" checks Lexus - cops charge driver

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Update 5/31/2014 - Tuesday, a runaway RAV4 smashed into Finkelstein Memorial Library in Spring Valley, New York. Police have now released security cam video, which caught the entire event. The RAV4 was SLOWLY turning into the parking lot when the vehicle suddenly took off like a rocket. Consistent with the video, the driver says his foot was on the brake pedal when he heard the engine rev up as the RAV4 simultaneously accelerated. This makes AT LEAST THREE CASES during the past two months suggesting electronically-induced unintended acceleration in runaway Toyotas. Common denominators include parking lots, turning corners, slow speeds when the events begin, and driver complaints that the brakes failed to stop the vehicles. NONE OF THE DRIVERS IN THESE CRASHES - WHICH HAVE RESULTED IN INJURIES GALORE AND THE DEATH OF A FOUR-YEAR-OLD - HAVE BEEN ELDERLY. All of the vehicles - various models - crashed into public buildings. A Solara into a daycare, a Lexus into a church, the RAV4 into a library.  

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Be warned. If your vehicle speeds out of control - and the vast majority of complaints involve Toyotas - you may wind up facing criminal charges. You may wind up in prison.

Easter night, a Lexus - raising justifiable concerns of electronically-induced unintended acceleration - crashed into a church. In a previous blog post, I addressed the situation:

Case in point is this week's Easter night crash of a 2006 Lexus into a church full of people, injuries galore. All the earmarks of an unintended acceleration event, and given NHTSA's outright lies regarding the issue, nobody can be blamed for wondering. It's especially noteworthy that the driver says she was applying the brake when the Lexus suddenly accelerated. Embedded systems expert Michael Barr addressed this all-too-frequent situation in court testimony regarding the defects he found in Toyota's electronic throttle control. Mr. Barr pointed out that the driver would actually have to take their foot off the brake pedal and immediately press the pedal again in order to stand a chance of stopping the vehicle. I won't belabor the obvious unlikelihood that anyone would ever do that in such a situation. Note the eerie similarity of the Easter Sunday crash to a complaint filed with NHTSA on 4/14/08 regarding a 2006 Lexus:

LEXUS LS 430 BRAKES FAILED MOVING INTO A PARKING SPACE. PRESSED ON THE BREAKS THE SURGED FORWARD WENT OVER A BUMP, CURB, HANDICAP SIGN AND INTO THE BUILDING. WAS PRESSING ON THE BRAKES AND THE CAR JUST TOOK OFF. *TR

News reports went on to say that the make and model of the Easter night Lexus had been spotlighted in complaints to the federal government of "brake failure or uncontrollable acceleration," and I went on to point out what Michael Barr found (see "Toyota's killer firmware: Bad design and its consequences") when he examined Toyota's throttle control:

>  Toyota’s electronic throttle control system (ETCS) source code is of unreasonable quality.
>  Toyota’s source code is defective and contains bugs, including bugs that can cause unintended acceleration (UA).
>  Code-quality metrics predict presence of additional bugs.
>  Toyota’s fail safes are defective and inadequate (referring to them as a “house of cards” safety architecture).
>  Misbehaviors of Toyota’s ETCS are a cause of UA.

It's a major consideration - referenced by Michael Barr when he testified about brakes - that many of the events suggesting electronically-induced unintended accleration have common denominators. The events are triggered when the drivers are trying to park, and are in the process of shifting gears. And the vast majority of such cases involve transmissions designed so that drivers must push the brake pedal in order to move the shift lever. All of this tends to strongly corroborate statements from the driver in Easter night's Lexus crash that she was pressing the brake pedal when the unintended accleration occured.

Fast forward to this week's news announcing that the "investigation" of Easter night's crash has been completed. And we're told that the cops - in an effort to conserve tax dollars - hired a "city mechanic" to examine the Lexus. And the "city mechanic" found nothing wrong with the brakes. And the Lexus driver was therefore charged with careless driving. And because the crash involved serious injuries, the Lexus driver must appear in court...

Nuthin' like gettin' a good deal for the taxpayin' public. Who needs embedded systems experts, electrical engineers, and other pricey professionals when the cops can get an opinion - dirt cheap - from a city mechanic?

Well, as  a matter of fact...

Not that the sweet land of liberty and justice for all would ever railroad anyone in the name of corporate interests, but it was false testimony from a "city mechanic" - about brakes - that figured prominently in sending Toyota driver Koua Fong Lee to prison for four years. And Lee was lucky. Ironically, his "trial" was so egregiously wrongful that Texas attorney Bob Hilliard stepped in pro-bono (Lee's initial attorney had been a public pretender), got the penniless immigrant released, charges dropped, and is now in the process of suing Toyota.

Turned out the "city mechanic" - hired by the prosecution for the "trial" that sent Lee to prison - falsely testified under oath that Lee's Camry did not have anti-lock brakes. Given the absence of skid marks, this later-determined-to-be-false testimony weighed heavily in discrediting Lee's claims that he had been desperately trying to stop his Camry as it sped out of control and crashed, killing three people, injuring others.

Really, folks. Amidst well-publicized evidence that "city mechanics" may not even be able to tell whether or not a vehicle has anti-lock brakes, by what standard of fairness - or common sense - do cops decide to charge someone with careless driving based on a city mechanic's "investigation" of an event that raises questions of electronically-induced unintended accleration?

Here's the deal. The only lawsuit based on claims of electronic defects in Toyota's electronics was won - hands down - by the plaintiffs. The jury - after hearing testimony from bonafide software experts - went even further, finding Toyota guilty of "reckless disregard" for public safety in the way it designed its throttle control. The Oklahoma case put the Recall King in settlement mode, and put the U.S. Department of Justice in "No comment" mode.

Acknowledged crook Toyota - admittedly guilty of misleading the public about safety defects - is now being allowed to ignore the evidence presented to the jury in Oklahoma. The only media organizations that dare to discuss the evidence are trade journals, bloggers, and one or two small publications. And the taxpaying public is left holding the bag. Short of expensive, time-consuming lawsuits that present testimony from bonafide experts, consumers - especially those with limited resources - have no recourse if their vehicle speeds out of control. Indeed, such cases may be determined by a "city mechanic."

Let's face it. Consumers have become pawns in a deadly game of corporate cover-up.