Bogus Lawsuit CostsToyota 1 Billion $

[tk1971]

Originally Posted by fnkngrv

^ dude....the bulk of the floormat fiasco was from idiots that stack their mats. just sayin that pretty much wipes away the whole floormat argument with the argument that allowing idiots to have keys to cars is the norm not the exception. Just for the record as well my ex-wife and I got into an argument about the whole stacking mats deal a few years back when our marriage was just peachy keen...told her she was being stupid too. Leaving your other mats in and stacking is just pure laziness.

In one of the higher profile deaths, the driver of the loaner car was a cop. I don't know about you, but before all this became front page news, I'd rarely give floor mats any thought whenever I rent a car, or pick up a loaner vehicle. How would the driver know that the rubber floor mat on the dealer loaner vehicle was incorrect?

In fact, even after buying a car with keyless ignition, I still keep grabbing for the ignition key. Out of our 3 cars, only one has keyless ignition. That's decades of muscle memory to overcome and maintain for the other 2 cars.

In a life and death situation when the car is barreling down the street at triple digit speeds, the last thing I would do is to stick my head down between my legs to check the floor mats. I'd also be hard pressed to remember how to turn off the moving vehicle using the push-button emergency sequence.

In this one case, I'm not saying Toyota was at fault (the Lexus dealer is at fault here, IMO, because they installed the wrong mat and ignored a previous complaint for that same vehicle).

(from wiki):

On August 28, 2009, a two-car collision killed four people riding in a Lexus dealer-provided loaner ES 350 in San Diego, California.[46][47][48][49] The NHTSA released a safety investigation report on October 25, finding that the accident vehicle was wrongly fitted with all-weather rubber floor mats meant for the RX 400h SUV, and that these mats were not secured by either of the two retaining clips.[50] The brake hardware also showed signs of heavy braking consistent with a stuck accelerator pedal.[50] The report stated that the accelerator pedal's hinge did not allow relieving obstructions, and the dashboard lacked directions for the three-second emergency press of the push button keyless ignition. NHTSA investigators also recovered the accident vehicle's accelerator pedal, which was still "bonded" to the SUV floor mat.[50] The return spring action of the accelerator pedal was found to be "smooth and unencumbered."[51]

Another investigation conducted by the San Diego County Sheriff's Department found that three days prior to the crash another customer had complained to the dealership about the floor mat trapping the same loaner car's accelerator pedal while driving.[52] The prior driver had switched to neutral and tugged on the floor mat, which released the accelerator.[52]