Toyota’s problems are hard for some to take, especially in Toyota City, Japan.
When news of the unintended acceleration problems first broke, Toyota management here suggested that the troubles were due to driver error. Taxi driver Toshio Okamura said he believed that explanation.
“It was hard to imagine,” he said of the mechanical problems. “This is Toyota. These things don’t happen.”
Now Toyota has admitted problems with its cars. And a U.S. lawmaker has alleged that the company may have deliberately withheld evidence in lawsuits relating to vehicle safety.
“Even now that the real facts are surfacing, I can’t accept it,” said Okamura. “I think many people here are struggling to accept it.”
It’s Kaizan, the belief that you can design perfection. It would be a good manufacturing philosophy if only there was a self-correcting mechanism for the inevitable flaws.
No car ever built was perfect and automotive technology does keep improving. But on board computers were a leap, and nothing in the world of cyber-technology ever suggested computer technology was perfect. You don’t trust your Dell running Vista, why would anyone ever trust what is at best your desktop computer’s idiot stepchild residing under your hood?
This isn’t Toyota- or Japan-bashing. Every major manufacturer who fucks up gets reamed for it. During the Firestone 500 recall in the ’70s, the Des Moines Register published a critical letter to the editor from me that resulted in our plant manager coming into the plant early so he could come down to my tractor tire bead machine to chew my butt out at 6 a.m.
If I criticized my employer in real time for manufacturing errors, why would I cut Toyota slack? It’s the principle. Own up to your errors and people will forgive you. Stonewall, and they’ll just remember what a heartless prick bastard you were.
Insurance saleswoman Junko Ida used a Japanese proverb to describe Toyota’s fate: The nail that stuck out is being hammered down. “But the nail will rise again,” she said.
A cliché that speaks to failures as clearly as it speaks to nonconformity. What it has to do with Toyota’s comeback, I can’t even guess. Nor can I guess why no account I’ve read other than CNN’s mentioned that Koua Fong Lee’s Toyota’s throttle was stuck open at 15% after the crash. Or that if Lee’s ‘96 Camry was defective, it means that Toyota’s been covering this problem up for over 15 years.
Toyota recalled more than 8 million vehicles, prompting Lee’s attorney to seek a re-examination of the vehicle in the 2006 accident.
“This never seemed right. A man with his family in the car — his pregnant wife — goes on a suicide mission? Then, the recalls started, and the complaints sounded just like what happened to Mr. Lee,” lawyer Brent Schaefer said. “It sounds just like a case of unintended acceleration.”
Schaefer says he has filed paperwork with the court stating his intention to retest the car, which remains in a vehicle impound.
“We plan to employ experts familiar with the ‘96 Camry and the components that make up car to show that rapid acceleration is to blame for the accident, not Mr. Lee accidentally stepping on the accelerator,” he said.
Gaertner said her office is willing to cooperate with the examination and see where the results lead.
“We have no interest in an innocent man being behind bars. Accordingly, we are very open to considering evidence that might show that in fact he wasn’t guilty,” Gaertner said. “If we’re going to disturb a conviction we need evidence.”
If governor-wannabee Gaertner wants to keep this conviction, it seems that she should have to prove that the County knows more about Toyotas than Toyota does. There was no science in Lee’s conviction, just the word of some engineers who didn’t know about these admittedly baffling problems saying that Lee’s account of the accident couldn’t have happened. Obviously they were wrong, and it is on the basis of their testimony that Lee was convicted.
Gaertner already has enough evidence to release Lee, but that would require acknowledging that he never should have been convicted in the first place.
Growing up I came to believe that you could not get a fair trial in the American South, at least not unless you were white. Right now I don’t know why any Hmong-American would feel like they could get a fair trial in Ramsey County. No science was involved in Lee’s testimony, just the assertions of a couple of glorified mechanics who couldn’t prove Lee was lying, but testified to that effect anyway.
This is important. Michael Fumento has written a ridiculous piece in defense of Toyota that sums up exactly how Lee’s trial must have gone. Read this except-ridden article to see what a wordsmith can do to make anyone sound guilty of anything simply by asserting circumstantial evidence and by ignoring the 53 deaths attributed to sudden acceleration in this country alone.
You can always manufacture a case against someone. That’s why “proof” is so important. What proof was used to convict Koua Fong Lee other than the testimony of a couple of engineers who couldn’t explain what had happened and therefore concluded driver error was to blame.
I’ve used that Snelling exit ramp many times. Had Lee not hit stopped vehicles he would have ripped into the busiest intersection in the Twin Cities at high speed. Ever been t-boned at high speed?
The accident could have been much worse than it was. As it is it was so bad that the Strib has finally written an editorial about the case.
A search of the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration database yields about 20 sudden-acceleration complaints about the 1996 Camry. Often, no mechanical explanations were found. While there are similar complaints about other manufacturers’ cars from the same year, the Times’ analysis showed that Toyota had more speed-control complaints involving crashes over the past decade than any other manufacturer.
The Ramsey County Attorney’s office held onto Lee’s Camry because of the accident’s severity. Experts hired by lawyers representing the victims’ family, as well as Toyota, will likely get a chance to examine it soon. Whether they’ll find proof of sudden acceleration is uncertain given the vehicle’s damage. That could create a disturbing scenario. The Toyota recalls may have been enough to create reasonable doubt among jurors when Lee was tried. But without new mechanical evidence from the car, the recalls may not be enough to meet the legal threshold for a new trial.
The judge who will rule on the issue, as well as the prosecutors who will weigh in, face a challenging situation. Their highest priority no matter what: to ensure beyond a doubt that Lee isn’t paying the price for Toyota’s mistakes.
And Jonathan Turley finally weighs in.
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The LAPD displayed the bloodied shirt, tie and jacket from Robert Kennedy’s assassination at an industry conference in Las Vegas recently. RFK’s son Maxwell writes:
I requested the return of my father’s items nearly a decade ago. My request was refused by the district attorney’s office. The D.A. promised, though, to keep the personal items with care and out of public view. Since then, courageous crime victims in California have forced a change in the state Constitution, requiring law enforcement officials to return victims’ property when it is no longer needed as evidence.
This week, despite that constitutional requirement, the chief of police and the district attorney took my father’s blood-soaked clothing and displayed it, as part of a macabre publicity stunt. It is almost incomprehensible to imagine what circumstances would have led to a decision to transport these items across state lines to be gawked at by gamblers and tourists. It is demeaning to my family, but just as important, it is demeaning to the trust that citizens place in their law enforcement officers.
When I called to express my surprise and disappointment, the chief maintained to me that hanging my dad’s bloody shirt from a mannequin in a casino was part of an effort to train detectives. Perhaps he believes that, but to me it seems like a cheap bid for attention. It is almost like a traffic cop inviting motorists to slow down and take a good look as they go past a tragedy.
The chief agreed to remove my father’s belongings from the exhibit. I’m pleased he did so. But he should also remember that such items are personal property, entrusted to the state’s care, not to be exploited. He relies on crime victims to prosecute virtually every criminal. He cannot long succeed if he continues to put victims’ pain on display for publicity.
And we sneered at the Communists for displaying the corpses of their leaders.
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The netroots campaign for Bill Halter is working out well despite my fears that locals may object to out of state money, it appears that the locals are fed up with Blanche Lincoln’s centrist corruption and Blue Dog doubletalk (just like all other corruption, money is the bottom line).
I don’t like the netroots approach, but I cannot argue that our system has been corrupted by monied interest operating across state lines, and that our process is still so money-driven that reform is unlikely to happen without a lot of money being shoveled to the media parasites who profit from $20 million Senate races.
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Since I’m technically dieting, I clicked to find out which three McDonald’s meals have been approved of by New Zealand’s Weight Watchers. A side salad, sure (your own dressing, I assume), but I didn’t expect to see Chicken McNuggets on their approved list, and I certainly didn’t anticipate the Filet-O-Fish making the cut.
From 1971 to the present I’ve never ordered a Filet-O-Fish that didn’t come with an ice cream scoop’s worth of tartar sauce on it. Even before I started working on my weight I routinely scraped as much of the tartar sauce off as possible.
No clue what’s going on here, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Kiwi who runs Weight Watchers down under isn’t driving a new car….
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I would not object to changing my mailing address to St. Google, Minnesota, if it would get me super-fast broadband.
In other news of technology, Iowa is now getting 20% of their power from wind (not a Chuck Grassley or Steve King joke). Despite an oil-funded anti-wind study from Spain that is being widely disseminated by the anti-science right.
Aaron Datesman writes about how wind is a better investment than nuclear, Datesman also writes about a study that shows how North Dakota could power much of the nation simply by converting excess wind capacity into hydrogen generation.
There are solutions to our problems if only we would work to solve our challenges instead of deferring to those trying to profit from them. Provide a service and then figure out how to make money from it. Nothing good comes from seeking profit by any means available.
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Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf made $18.7 million last year for mismanaging the bank that handles my money. And Congress still can’t figure out what to do about it.
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Etc.”
Senate GOoPs even obstructed judicial nominees they approved of
Palin on Leno (the ha-ha funniness of people who glory in the pain of others who are not them or their friends)
Evil “ego-driven” marketing
More on the lawyers smeared by Liz Cheney and Chuck Grassley (and more about how Rudy Giuliani’s law firm provided similar legal services)
Our Saudi allies to give woman who filed sexual harassment complaint 300 lashes
Eric Massa’s retirement announcement marred by weird allegations (disclaimer: I once rode on an elevator with Eric Massa, but we did not have sex)
The silver lining in Rangel stepping aside (do not give him his chairmanship back!)
Rob Levine on neocon lies
Texas Republicans owning up to the shittiness that was Bush
Digby on pederasts Catholics
Barack O’Hoover
Michael Moore on being represented by wusses
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Al Wiesel, aka Jon Swift, R.I.P.
Michael Foot, R.I.P.
Politically not on the same page, but both had wit and passion and that works for me.
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