The Wall Street Journal is reporting that a former NHTSA official, George Person, has accused the Department of Transportation and Secretary of Transportation Ray La Hood, of withholding the report.
“The information was compiled. The report was finished and submitted. When I asked why it hadn’t been published, i was told that the Secretary’s office didn’t want to release it.” said Person. According to Person, NHTSA examined 40 Toyota’s, 23 of which had accelerated suddenly. In all 23 the vehicles showed a wide-open-throttle and no brake application leading them to speculate the fault was driver error instead of a ghost in the machine.
Person feels that this blockage is politically motivated, as “there is a lot of anger towards Toyota,” and that the DOT “are hoping against hope that they find something that points back to a flaw in Toyota vehicles.” In February, Inside Line reported on the potential “cozy relationship” that NHTSA may have with the auto makers. Certainly that coziness isn’t off the minds of LaHood and his department.
The DOT maintains that the report is not complete.
Person, 67, is as of July 3 retired from NHTSA after 27 years. He was chief of the Recall Management Division and retired in good standing with the department.
( Wall Street Journal
What is the Obama administration hiding? Remember when Ray LaHood told all Americans not to drive their Toyota’s? When Ms. Smith went to Washington and told that big whopper to the congressional hearing about her Toyota running away and calling her husband at 90 miles an hour to say goodbye?
I am not a conspiracy theorist, but when the government owns a couple of car companies that compete with Toyota and that same government does it’s level best to hurt Toyota at the benefit of the two car companies the government owns, there is a problem. Toyota won’t sue the government and the CEO of Toyota didn’t fall on a sword, but it is questionable behavior on the part of our government. They turned the dogs on Toyota. The media had a feeding frenzy. Toyota suffered serious financial damage.
Now we know what many of us already knew. It was human error. Other car companies including the ones our government owns has the same kinds of problems at the same relative percentage.
Someone should slam a Toyota hood on Ray La Hood.
