Toyota and Lexus Unintended Acceleration Investigation Shot Down - CarComplaints.com
A California man filed the petition after a crash that involved his wife in a 2009 Lexus ES 350 that allegedly was caused by an unintended acceleration incident. The man, Gopal Raghavan, who has a Ph. D. in electrical engineering, said his wife was pulling into a parking spot when the Lexus accelerated suddenly and crashed into large bushes. The petition says Lexus investigated the event data recorder and found nothing to indicate a defect in the car. Raghavan says his professional opinion is the accelerator is either calculating an incorrect accelerator value or receiving a noise spike on the accelerator sensor. In denying the petition, NHTSA said allegations concerning the crashes are based upon misconceptions about the manner in which the data recorder works in pre-crash data in the Lexus ES 350, Toyota Corolla and Toyota Camry vehicles. The safety agency said all the evidence points to a driver applying the gas pedal instead of the brake pedal when parking the vehicle. Additionally, NHTSA said the event data recorders in the three subject Toyota and Lexus vehicles indicated no braking was recorded in two of the crash events until the data recorder trigger point, and in the third crash no braking was recorded at... Source: www.carcomplaints.com
