Piling on Toyota: The Media Storm Needs Some Context

As a media phenomenon, the Toyota crisis shows no signs of dying down. Still, given Toyota's largely exemplary safety record in the U.S., a case can be made that some news outlets on the prowl for ratings are piling on.

The sudden-acceleration issue is certainly real--and Toyota has handled it poorly. But should owners be scared out of their wits? A little context is helpful.

Let's look at the record. Visit the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration' defects and recalls site, and you'll find 1,438 overall problem reports on the Prius, 131 on the Camry--and just seven on the Honda Accord. (Many are cases of sudden acceleration, but lots of other things are reported, too.) That's a damning preponderance of Toyotas.

But the longer-term and more specific record tells a different story. According to Olivia Alair, a spokeswoman for the Department of Transportation, from 2000 through the end of January 2010, the agency received 15,000 total sudden acceleration complaints. Ford had the most, with 3,526 of them. Toyota was in second place, with 2,600. Right behind were General Motors, with 2,250, Chrysler with 1,873 and Honda with 1,173.

And Toyota's reputation for building safe cars is deserved. The 2010 Consumer Reports auto issue generally rates Toyotas favorably in such criteria as accident avoidance, crash protection, use of airbags and rollover performance. Among small cars, for instance, the Prius receives the top rating (a red circle) and is on an equal footing with the Volkswagen Golf and New Beetle, the Subaru Impreza/Outback Sport, the Mazda3 and Kia Soul. The rest have lower ratings.

The 2009 Prius also receives a perfect score in the reliability ratings.

None of this is to suggest that Toyota doesn't have a major problem on its hands with sudden acceleration. As if to underscore the severity, Consumer Reports suspended its recommendation of eight popular Toyota models in January. But it may decide soon to reinstate the company's coveted check marks.

"We're monitoring developments in the Toyota story continuously and it's clear that more information is coming to light all the time," CU said in a statement. "A Consumer Reports recommendation is hard earned and we will only reinstate our suspended recommendations on the Toyota and Lexus models when we feel the time is right."

The dramatic California case received blanket coverage on TV, newspapers and on the web. But it's possible that the deluge of coverage was set in motion more by timing than other factors. NHTSA's defects and recalls database bulges with many similar acceleration reports that vanish into the files.

That database does make terrifying reading, since there are many graphic descriptions of sudden acceleration. The owner of a 2010 Camry says that the problems persisted even after having the car went through the recall fix. "Something needs to be done before more people are killed," the report says. Another owner adds, "There has been no improvement since the repairs (done March 2). In fact, it appears to have become more frequent."

It is likely, however, that the nonstop media coverage has made people hyper-sensitive to problems in their Toyotas. Sudden acceleration has been reported in many other makes and models. "I was nearly killed by sudden acceleration in my Dodge RAM 1500," an owner told me (see video below). "Chrysler refused to take the incident seriously."

Incidents have been reported to me involving Fords, Hondas and Acuras, among others. If the problem is electronic, as I suspect, it's not likely to be limited to one manufacturer.

As Toyota spokesman John Hanson told the New York Times, "We are at a point here where anytime a Toyota is involved in an accident, the specter of unintended acceleration comes up."

The company's sluggish response exacerbated the tendency for the media to single it out. When reports of runaway cars gathered force, Toyota could and should have reacted faster with immediate recalls and, perhaps, an offer to retrofit all of its recent cars (not just some of them) with a brake override system of the type that is standard issue in nearly all German cars.

Why German cars? Remember the Audi sudden acceleration scandal in the 1980s? A Mercedes spokeswoman, Donna Boland, said that Audi's nightmarish experience was big motivator for German companies, because they saw the problem up close. "You can't have enough layers of redundancy," she said. Toyota should have gotten that message, too.

Despite everything, I would still consider buying a Toyota today. I think the company will eventually emerge from this crisis and again make some of the safest cars on the planet.

Photo: Flickr/Handolio