Unintended acceleration and car makers
Recent complaints of unintended acceleration have been bad news for Ford and General Motors, but it could be much more traumatic for Audi.
On February 5, 2007, Bulent and Anne Ezal were headed to lunch at the Pelican Point Restaurant in Pismo Beach, California. The restaurant is nestled on the edge of a cliff, affording dramatic views of the Pacific Ocean below. The parking lot was downhill of the restaurant, so Ezal rode the brakes of his 2005 Camry as he approached a parking space. He was at a complete stop, when the Camry suddenly accelerated, jumping a small curb, crashing through a fence and over the bluff. The vehicle fell 70 feet to the rocks below, and turned over once, coming to rest in the surf. Anne Ezal died of her injuries in the crash. Bulent Ezal later recovered.
Seven months later, Jean Bookout and her friend Barbara Schwarz were exiting Interstate Highway 69 in Oklahoma – also in a 2005 Camry. As she sped down the ramp, Bookout, the driver, realized that she could not stop her car. She pulled the parking brake, leaving a 100-foot skid mark from right rear tire, and a 50-foot skid mark from the left. The Camry, however, continued speeding down the ramp, across the road at the bottom, and finally came to rest with its nose in an embankment. Schwarz died of her injuries; Bookout spent two months recovering from head and back injuries.
Another report notes that an out of control vehicle traveled eight miles at more than 100 mph before striking two vehicles and becoming disabled. A person in one of the struck vehicles was killed in the collision.
Another SUA inquiry closed with a whimper, and without a satisfactory explanation for a phenomenon that has plagued various makes and models for nearly 30 years. Since 1999, the agency has received seven defect petitions to investigate sudden unintended acceleration and launched eight SUA investigations into GMs, Fords, Toyotas and Volkswagen models. In the last decade, manufacturers have launched 31 recalls. More typically, manufacturers deny a mechanical problem and blame the problem on driver error. If the complaint numbers are high, they blame that on a media-induced frenzy. NHTSA, for the most part, has thrown up its hands, opening – and then closing – multiple investigations without finding a defect. This has led some to conclude that SUA is solely the province of pedal misapplication and stuck floor mats.
Sudden unintended acceleration is a complex problem. There are multiple causes when a vehicle shoots forward or back in apparent contradiction to the driver’s commands: design defects which induce driver error – such as poor pedal placement, the lack of a shift interlock, floor mat interference, mechanical or electromechanical defects and electronic defects. The latter –which is the most difficult to pinpoint – is nonetheless a more likely possibility as vehicle systems rely more heavily on sophisticated computer-driven electronics. And yet, automakers and NHTSA behave as though it is perfectly rational to assume that electronics housed in the hostile automotive environment – including the fault detection system – will always function as intended, and that malfunctions will be easily reproduced in a laboratory setting.
A study, begun in 1986, in which the NHTSA examined ten vehicles suffering from an "above average" number of incident reports and concluded that those incidents must have resulted from driver error. In the lab tests, throttles were positioned to wide open prior to brake application in an attempt to replicate the circumstances of the incidents under study.
Unintended acceleration resulting from pedal misapplication is a driver error wherein the driver presses the accelerator when braking is intended. Some shorter drivers' feet may not be long enough to touch the floor and pedals, making them more likely to press the wrong pedal due to a lack of proper spatial or tactile reference.
Audi contended, prior to findings by outside investigators, that the problems were caused by driver error, specifically pedal misapplication.
With the series of recall campaigns, Audi made several modifications; the first adjusted the distance between the brake and accelerator pedal on automatic-transmission models. Later repairs, of 250,000 cars dating back to 1978, added a device requiring the driver to press the brake pedal before shifting out of park. As a byproduct of sudden unintended acceleration, vehicles now include gear stick patterns and brake interlock mechanisms to prevent inadvertent gear selection.
Audi’s U.S. sales, which had reached 74,061 in 1985, dropped to 12,283 in 1991 and remained level for three years. With resale values falling dramatically. Audi subsequently offered increased warranty protection and renamed the affected models — with the 5000 becoming the100 and 200 in 1989. The company only reached the same level of U.S. sales again by model year 2000.
The dangerous problem of cars accelerating without a driver's input has put Toyota in the headlines — and brought the giant carmaker's executives to congressional hearings. But unintended acceleration has been a problem across the auto industry, according to an NPR analysis of consumer complaints to federal regulators.
Lexus and Toyota models were stung recently by claims that faulty floor mats had jammed throttle pedals and were causing wide-open acceleration. Toyota has agreed to a largest-ever recall of 4.3 million vehicles (which could cost $250 million or more) to modify the gas pedals and remove unsecured or incompatible driver’s floor mats. Not since Audi was decimated by accusations of unintended acceleration in the late 1980s has the topic of runaway cars received so much media attention.
The furor began when an off-duty California Highway Patrolman crashed a loaner Lexus ES350 at high speed, killing himself, his wife and their daughter, and his brother-in-law. It was reported that someone, either the officer or his brother-in-law, called 9-1-1 moments before the crash, saying that the “accelerator is stuck . . . there’s no brake.”
The NPR News investigation finds that other automakers have had high rates of complaints in some model years, including Volkswagen, Volvo and Honda — in some cases resolving the apparent problems through evolving technology and recalls.
The analysis covers about 15,000 complaints filed over the past decade, covering cars back to the 1990 model year. The complaints were filed with the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, NHTSA, which regulates auto safety.
As Toyota's problems have unfolded very publicly, amid tragic stories of runaway cars, NHTSA has also come in for criticism.
In Congress, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood recently defended the agency's response to safety problems, saying it is continuous and aggressive. Representatives of NHTSA — which is part of the Department of Transportation — declined to appear on All Things Considered to discuss NPR's analysis of the complaint data.
