USA Today (2/8, Carty, 2.11M) reports as Toyota “grappled Sunday with reports that it was recalling its Prius hybrids in Japan and may do so in the United States, evidence continued to beg whether the automaker and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration responded quickly enough to reports of sudden acceleration in some of its other models.” The Prius concerns “center over braking delays, but insurer State Farm told USA TODAY that it notified NHTSA in late 2007 that it was seeing an increase in sudden acceleration trends with other Toyota and Lexus models.” Congress is “also studying Toyota’s and NHTSA’s reactions,” and the House Oversight and Energy committees will hold hearings on the issue in the coming weeks.
On February 8, 2010, In Automobile Accidents, Product Safety, By admin