$1,200,000,000.00 fine for TM.

The devil lost in technical details? For information or more mis-information:

From EETimes, David Benjamin, 28 March 2014:

"This week, the Department of Justice (DOJ), through U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in the Southern District of New York (Manhattan), imposed a $1.2 billion penalty against the Toyota Motors Corporation for negligence and deception in a series of "unintended acceleration" accidents
that resulted in as many as 93 fatalities in Toyota vehicles manufactured between 2003 and 2009.

"Inexplicably, the DOJ cited failures with floor mats and "sticky" accelerator pedals as the cause of more than 2,000 cases of unintended acceleration reported to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) since 1999. Several former NHTSA administrators, a large number of automotive safety experts and electronic engineers have long expressed doubts about the mats-and-pedals thesis and have said the focus should be on Toyota's electronic throttle control system.

"Among these skeptics, the one engineer allowed into Toyota's ultra-secure "code room," to test the software in the electronic throttle control system, Michael Barr, head of the Barr Group, has stated flatly that the failures originated in Toyota's electronics.

"Barr was the star witness in the only Toyota unintended acceleration case to be litigated in an open court, in Bookout v. Toyota, in Oklahoma City. Based on Barr's testimony, the jury decided against Toyota, assessing a $3 million judgment, after which Toyota reached an undisclosed settlement with the plaintiffs on the amount of punitive damages.

"When the DOJ announced is penalties against Toyota, David Benjamin, who writes now and then for EE Times, got in touch with Jerika Richardson at the Dept. of Justice, asking why — while penalizing Toyota for a series of "unintended acceleration" tragedies — accepted Toyota's widely discredited mats-and-pedals explanation.

"Ms. Richardson asked Benjamin to submit questions, after which she wrote back saying that DOJ would not comment."

More food for thought (find by Google):

“Embedded Expert: No Pedal Misapplication in Toyota Case” The Toyota unintended acceleration case decided by an Oklahoma jury may have hinged on the testimony of an embedded systems expert who definitively said there was no pedal misapplication. Michael Barr, CTO and co-founder of Barr Group, told the court that the fatal accident involving a 2005 Toyota Camry was the result of a systematic software malfunction, combined with a loss of throttle control.

Also:
"Electrical Failure of an Accelerator Pedal Position Sensor Caused by a Tin Whisker and Investigative Techniques Used for Whisker Detection",
H. Leidecker, L. Panashchenko, J. Brusse, NASA Engineering & Safety Center NESC – HQ Langley Research Center & NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

And another:
“Toyota Case: Inside Camry’s Electronic Control Module” by Junko Yoshida, EE Times, 30 October 2013

Just today:
“Adding Up Toyota's Expensive Software” by Jack Ganssle, Chief Engineer, The Ganssle Group , EE Times, 31 March 2014

 

Whatever the cause, I still wonder why a person wouldn't shut it off, depress the clutch or put it in neutral. Instead of, in at least one case, calling 911 at 120mph +.

 

common sense isn't so common these days.

 

Maybe they didn't really want to shut it down???

Truth is, we'll probably never know the truth about what really happened in any of this.

 

Did they ever find out why that happened? The guy who called 911?

 

http://www.dot.gov/briefing-room/us...ults-nhtsa-nasa-study-unintended-acceleration

Some info...

 

Some people are too damned dumb to drive.

This fine is utter bullshit.

 

I could think of better endings for myself.

I bet you're correct.

 

I wonder why Toyota was fined $1.2 billion and GM only $35 million - what am I missing ? Thanks for any reply. Curious George