Is NHTSA Doing Enough To Help Toyota Accident Victims?
To say that Toyota has “let down” its customers understates the impact of their actions. If your pizza is delivered in over thirty minutes, you can say that the pizza place “let you down.” If a suit that you bought falls apart after only wearing it three times, then you can say that your tailor “let you down.” But if the accelerator of your Prius sticks and you end up barreling through a stop light, hit another car and are seriously injured or worse, saying “Toyota let me down” doesn’t really cover it.
From what has been uncovered so far, it appears that the Toyota Corporation has marketed and sold cars with multiple defects in acceleration, steering and braking systems, and it appears that they were aware or should have been aware of these defects and did nothing about it, causing multiple injuries and death.
So what would be the appropriate response from the government and Toyota itself? First and foremost would be a propersafety recall, and not one that is merely financially convenient to the Toyota Corporation, but rather one that actually fixes the problems that make these cars dangerous. Toyota has done that, issuing recalls on practically every model that they have on the market.
Second would be full disclosure. Toyota should be more forthcoming with their crash data and reports than they currently are. Allowing this data to be independently analyzed would go a long way in not just determining the problems, but would also help Toyota avoid making these mistakes in the future. It is sometimes much harder to see your own errors, especially when there is a financial incentive to not see them.
Toyota should be responsible financially for the injuries and damages that they’ve caused. If someone has been killed or injured in a Toyota, someone has to pay the medical bills. For a large corporation like Toyota, the only way for them to actually feel the weight of what they have done is to make them responsible for the injuries and damages they’ve caused. If a spouse who is counting on income suddenly is left alone due to an acceleration defect car accident, how will that spouse be able to survive financially? Is it fair to the surviving spouse to have to figure it out alone? Toyota should be held accountable for that loss of income. Doing so would not only give Toyota every reason to clean up its act, but it would also serve as an example to other automakers who are manufacturing cars that are shown to be unsafe.
With that principle in mind, we feel that the fine of $16 million that the NHTSA recently levied against Toyota to be a good start in the right direction but falls quite short for the injured and killed, especially considering that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood issued a statement saying that the release of these defective automobiles was no accident:
“We now have proof that Toyota failed to live up to its legal obligations,” said LaHood on Monday. “Worse yet, they knowingly hid a dangerous defect for months from U.S. officials and did not take action to protect millions of drivers and their families.”
Even after the costs of issuing the recalls, Toyota still remains a wealthy corporation. $16 million is not even a dent in their coffers. This is hardly the incentive needed to get them to improve its faulty vehicles, and compensate the injured or killed.
It appears that the only way to make this automotive giant accountable for its actions is for the victims to take their cases to the courts. If the NHTSA will not stand up and demand substantive penalties from Toyota, those who have been injured or have lost family members due to this act of negligence will have to do so themselves.
Greenberg and Bederman is a Washington, D.C. area personal injury law firm that is currently offering legal assistance to those who have been injured due to malfunctioning Toyotas. This includes drivers of faulty Toyotas, passengers who were riding in faulty Toyotas, drivers in other cars who were hit by faulty Toyotas, and cyclists, motorcyclists or pedestrians who were injured due to malfunctioning Toyotas. Our personal injury attorneys have decades of experience in both auto accidents and product liability, and accidents involving these malfunctioning Toyotas fall under both of those legal categories.
If you or a loved one has been injured due to an accident with a Toyota, contact Greenberg and Bederman for a free Toyota Accident legal consultation today.
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