Remember when our Toyotas went all “Maximum Overdrive” and tried to wipe us out last year? Defective automobiles would suddenly accelerate without warning, putting the lives of helpless passengers on the line. The media and government went ballistic. War was declared on Toyota, complete with congressional hearings.
Toyota wound up halting sales on eight of its most popular models, including the Camry, one of the best-selling cars in the United States. The New York Times reports the company paid $48.8 million in fines, and saw its sales drop 0.4 percent in 2010.
It turns out these cases of “sudden acceleration” were not defects in Toyota automobiles at all. After a 10-month investigation, the government concluded the incidents were mostly caused by floor mats interfering with the accelerator pedal, and drivers accidentally hitting the gas instead of the brakes.
Coincidentally, the same government that tried to burn Toyota at the stake over a manufactured “crisis” just happens to own a competing auto company. No need to worry, because back when Ray LaHood was warning consumers not to touch the Killdozers lurking in their garages, a White House flack assured CBS News that the government’s stake in General Motors “would not have any impact on this Administration's commitment to making sure that Americans are kept safe on our roads.”
The Toyota scare was just the latest in a long series of orchestrated crises, in the tradition of the Alar scam of the 1980s, or DDT hysteria before that.
The vindication of Toyota should be a huge story. It involves millions of dollars in damage to a private-sector corporation, the suppression of exculpatory evidence, and a swarm of parasitic lawyers. Instead, the news is treated like the correction to a minor spelling error in yesterday’s horoscope section of the newspaper.
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