Toyota Starts to Fight Back Says Overall Safety Record is Normal

Detroit MI February 22, 2010; Neil Roland writing for Automotive News reported that Toyota's U.S. executives are mounting a new and more vigorous defense of the company's tarnished safety record in the face of the massive flood of negative reports from the government and media

Company officials argue Toyota is being punished unfairly for a level of long-term safety performance that is well within industry norms. Last week they cited consumer complaint statistics to defend Toyota's record.

Critics say those figures have limited value for the specific issue of unintended acceleration and divert attention from hundreds of other complaints that have raised questions about Toyota vehicles. Still, Toyota executives and dealers are using the data to fire back at the daily pounding of bad news.

Toyota Division chief Bob Carter said only 13 complaints about sticky accelerators led to its massive recall of 2.3 million vehicles last month and the suspension of sales of eight models.

"That's too many, and it's our responsibility to fix it." Carter said at a news conference at the National Automobile Dealers Association convention in Orlando.

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