Houston Toyota defect lawyers caution: Beware the dangerous floor mats. That appears to be Toyota’s message after issuing yet another recall on floor mats for about 154,000 2010 Lexus RX350 and RX450 models. Meanwhile, the company has done nothing to address the dangerous problem of unintended acceleration that has plagued its vehicles, including Lexus models, since the company introduced electronic throttle control systems in 2002.
Complaints about the problem of unintended acceleration (UA) events in Lexus and Toyotamodels have been coming in regularly since electronic throttle control was introduced. But various investigations into the complaints have failed to produce any significant results.
Toyota continues to blame the problem on floor mats and sticky accelerator pedals even though victims of the UA events have vehemently denied that either issue factored into their incidents. And mechanical investigations of vehicles involved in various UA incidents failed to turn up evidence of stuck pedals or floor mats.
But go ahead: fear the floor mat and ignore the real problem. Some feel that the problem may lie in a defect in the electronic throttle control systems used by Toyota. But the NHTSA stands squarely behind the Toyota assertion that the problem must be floor mats and sticky pedals. Our Houston Toyota defect lawyers are frankly a little disturbed by the NHTSA’s apparent willingness to abandon its position as watchdog of vehicle safety to echo an automaker’s denial.
Victim reports regarding the frightening UA events consistently state that the brake failure warning light came on in the dashboard once the UA took hold and that the brakes did indeed fail and would not respond. Quick-thinking drivers saved themselves from serious crashes by downshifting their vehicles into neutral, whereupon the vehicles finally slowed to stops.
You don’t have to be a certified Toyota mechanic to realize that a sticky accelerator pedal or a floor mat entrapping a pedal would not trigger a brake failure warning light. Indeed, our Houston Toyota defect lawyers point out that such events would not be able to trigger such a warning.
Rather, there must be some defect in the vehicles’ electronic control systems that link the UA event to disengagement of the brakes. You should know that electronic control systems are designed to detect events indicating that a vehicle is leaving the road or losing control and to correct the situation quickly, faster than a human driver could respond. When such systems work properly, they can save vehicle occupants from crashes that would occur because human drivers can’t always detect and react to errors or equipment failures quickly enough to save themselves.
But in the case of these Toyotas malfunctioning with UA, human drivers are required to react quickly to loss of control apparently caused by the very electronic control systems designed to prevent such things. Safety Research & Strategies, Inc., which has researched the issue and described specific UA incidents suffered by vehicle owners, detection and resolution of the exact source of the UA/brake failure problem in the Toyota/Lexus electronic control systems is probably years away.
In the meantime, concerned Lexus and Toyota owners may replace their floor mats, drive carefully, and hope for the best. Read more about the investigations into Toyota’ s UA problem in this previous posting on the subject by our Houston Toyota defect lawyers.