Hold on now...you were doing ok until you said this:
"He has no idea what happened, but being a new (and hi-line)car, he thinks surely it must have been a fluke thing."
Nope...no way no how. A normal thinking person is not going to call that a fuke. While on the side of the road, they are going to be on their hands and knees, head under dash confirming something hadn't interfered with the accelerator pedal.
and this:
"Remember, its not his car, and he wants to take care of it (and cause no damage that he has to pay for himself)."
If the loaner car is trying to not respond to MY input (the driver, the one in chg) then all bets are off at that point and I wouldn't care if I repositioned the brake pedal as I pushed it through the floor boards trying to regain control of that car. And so would anyone else.
But getting back to the first stop on the side of the road. If after being on hands and knees and ruled out an obstruction, a more enterprising person (mechanic or mechanical and armed with a good flashlight) might pop the hood and look for an obstruction around the linkage of the throttle body or injection rack. (yes i know it is drive by wire, but most people would NOT) and of course they aren't going to see anything, and at THAT point, the logical thing to due would be to call for assistance. The car was trying to accelerate on its own for goodness sake!! You get it stopped on the side of the road and you are going to risk that scenario all over again?! I don't think so..
There was at least one cell phone in the Saylor car...
My guess is that Saylor would not have pulled back onto the road unless he thought he had found and corrected the causative factor of the first/initial SUA.
Didn't I read that a witness said smoke was seen rising from the front of the car as it was parked on the side of the road with hazards blinking..? If so that would be another indication of severe braking as the smoke would most likely have been coming from the abused brakes.
But yet another reason as to why the brakes couldn't be used satisfactorily the second time.
It does seem highly probable, at least the first time, that the gas pedal got stuck in the floor mat... But what would a sensible person do upon discovered that..? In my case the floor mat quickly became an occupant of the back seat.
Yet the floor mat was seemingly still in the "proper" place post-crash.
Nope...no way no how. A normal thinking person is not going to call that a fuke. While on the side of the road, they are going to be on their hands and knees, head under dash confirming something hadn't interfered with the accelerator pedal.
And he may have done that... and, found nothing. He may not have understood what happened at all. In fact, I suspect that is exacly what happened.
But I can tell you from many personal experiences that people can, and will, recover from doing a really stupid thing, and then go back and do exactly the same thing.
But, we're only opining here, so my scenario (like wwest's) is entirely possible.
Personally, I think mine is the more likely of the 2, just as wwest feels his is as well.
If the loaner car is trying to not respond to MY input (the driver, the one in chg) then all bets are off at that point and I wouldn't care if I repositioned the brake pedal as I pushed it through the floor boards trying to regain control of that car. And so would anyone else.
Again, you are injecting what you think YOUR behavior would be onto someone you have never met.
I have been in driving schools at BMW an seen drivers claim they had the brakes floored, and it was crystal clear they weren't. Its an actual ABS demo done there.
Plus, why would anyone wait until they hit 100mph before attempting to brake?
I think what happened with the brakes is that Saylor stomped on them. When they didn't slow the Lexus he tried again. And perhaps again. It sounds like that SUV had vacuum-based power assist brakes, so after a couple of pumps, the brakes would lose the power assist and be much harder to apply.
" It sounds like that SUV had vacuum-based power assist brakes, so after a couple of pumps, the brakes would lose the power assist and be much harder to apply."
Good point, and harder still because with the engine revving, vacuum would become an even greater premium.
I have found that ever since ABS, with engine off and no vacuum left, the brakes seem harder to apply than pre-ABS. Maybe ESC is part of the equation too, trying to recall. My CRV loses vacuum overnight it seems, and to go down a hill without the engine running I can barely stop it at the bottom of my drive. It is unbelievable. I discovered as I was working at the bottom of the drive and had no reason to start the engine....or so i thought. It was hairy..I almost started it near the bottom but realized i was going to be able to stop. And the useless parking brake on rear discs...the useless things that they are...I cudda sworn they just laughed at me when i tried them.
I wonder if I have problem with my brakes? When I watched that video of the Camry test braking I know for a fact my CRV would add a couple HUNDRED feet in that test, not just 30 or so.
Well I meant if my engine was off. It's only a 2.4 so likely WOT has less influence than the Camry's did, especially if was a 3.5.
It wouldn't have to be fancy, even a stick cut to length jammed against the seat would do it. Or someone in the back seat with a stick leaning over and keeping throttle pinned. That would be the easiest.
I was thinking that if it was somehow done at the throttle plate, bypassing the gas pedal, then the engine/transaxle ECU would not know to downshift the transaxle as a function of the slowing speed.
Saylor was driving a rental Lexus sedan, not a rental Lexus SUV. His rental Lexus sedan, however, was tampered with by some dolt at the SD Lexus dealer (Bob Baker) putting floor mats from a Lexus SUV in on top of the sedan's regular floor mats. Horrible, tragic mistake there.
This person must know who they are these days, shant they? :sick:
The best case (which I seriously doubt) would the brake switch is on an interrupt line which initiates a high priority timer that upon expiration hits the hardware such that nothing else overrides the cutoff (until it detects brake release), and all this includes enough verification so a glitch (noise spike) on the brake line won't reset the timer, only a release.
The problem is that with stability control, ABS, and On-Star's ability to override throttle and brake systems all added to the mix, such a simple and direct override wouldn't be likely. In fact, since the systems directly control the brakes at each wheel, that points to it all being interpreted and controlled by software. As I've said before. Essentially a video game on wheels.
For a good example of this, consider cars with malfunctioning ABS systems that have their brakes stop working entirely.
Toyota probably uses social media measurement and analysis tools to scrape sites like SRS minute by minute. It's a pretty common way to stay on top of issues and do damage control for the big companies.
Yes and it's a good thing they are reading...good for them, good for the consumer. Not only do they get a chance to hear *exactly* what's on people's minds without having it filtered through yespersons, but they also have the opportunity to correct misinformation, should they so desire.
It's the smart company that goes pro-active IMO. Being accused of some safety defect in your cars is like being accused personally of some heinous crime by your neighbors. You'd better speak up or fess' up, or live with the consequences.
It's the smart company that goes pro-active IMO. Being accused of some safety defect in your cars is like being accused personally of some heinous crime by your neighbors. You'd better speak up or fess' up, or live with the consequences
Agree in full.
The problem can, however, be akin to being called a child molester. One the accusation has been made, there are some who will forever onwards believe its true, even when no shred of evidence has ever been presented.
But given how corporations generally act, I think Toyota's in for a rough future when the real cause comes out. It's really a case of them denying it too much to the point where anything other than 100% as they see it is going to be now seen as a real problem for them.
The most reasonable reason why Toyota isn't saying much is that they don't know themselves. In fact, as near as I can tell, so far at least, nobody has a clue.
Besides, people believe what they want to. In spite of on-site demonstrations of how crop circles are built, there are many thousands of people who still believe they were built by aliens.
I don't see how Toyota can "prove" their cars blameless---the only thing they can do is wait out the issue until the doubters are exhausted from looking.
The only people in a position to find, discover, the cause is Toyota themselves, or their subcontractors, NipponDenso, Etc. And you can bet good money that if it is this group that finds the flaw it will NEVER become public knowledge, or known outside of a very small group.
The cause will be fixed with no one outside the group being the wiser since paying the "cost" for the relatively few injuries or even deaths will be less than the public opinion cost due to full disclosure.
that's just a conspiracy theory IMO that will not hold water---people ALWAYS blab, be it CIA, Mafia, the Kremlin---sooner or later it all comes out--especially in the automotive world and especially in the age of the Internet, Wikileaks, etc. And Toyota doesn't even kill its squealers--lol!
that's just a conspiracy theory IMO that will not hold water---people ALWAYS blab, be it CIA, Mafia, the Kremlin---sooner or later it all comes out--especially in the automotive world and especially in the age of the Internet, Wikileaks, etc.
In 1993 Lexus flew an engineer into Seattle from Japan for the sole purpose, supposedly, to check that my new '92 Lexus LS400's climate control module had been properly programmed at the factory. He removed the module from the car to do the bench test, connected a silver aluminum box to what I assumed to be the programming, "reflash" port, indicated that the module had been properly programmed at the factory, buttoned things up, and returned to Japan.
It was maybe years later that I inadvertently discovered that one aspect of the Climate control did not operate as before, when new. I took it in to Lexus of Bellevue and they were kind enough to verify in writing that my LS400 climate operation do not match the factory specifications. They were so confounded at this that they checked several other '92 LS400's on the lot to be sure they operated as specified.
What had actually happened, seemingly, was that my climate control had been reprogammed in order to eliminate the propensity to suddenly and totally, unexpectedly, fog over the inside of the windshield in certain climate change conditions.
I have little doubt that not a few accidents occurred with owners of '92 LS400's. But much like the number of SUA incidents Toyota chose a cover-up rather than an admission.
A tighter family than the Mafia? I don't know about that--LOL! Actually I am pretty familiar with Japanese culture, and they rat out like anyone else, but very politely.
That just sounds like you are setting yourself up with an excuse so you won't have to man up and admit you were wrong.
Oh, I don’t know about that. The thing with conspiracy theories is that they all have a built-it escape hatch. It’s the nature of the beast. If the “crime” is discovered, they win. Obviously, they were right all along. On the other hand, if nothing is ever discovered, it is because it is still secret and we just haven’t been informed yet. Pearl Harbor is a great example. Roswell is another. 9/11 is becoming one as well. That’s why conspiracy theories stick around FOREVER.
That's because many conspiracy theories are faith-based. The answer is already known and believed, so it's just a matter of finding facts to support the answer.
It would be ironic, but it's more possible that Toyota could be hiding not what it does know, but hiding the fact that it doesn't know (which is embarrassing).
Remember the big "oil gel" flap? That turned out to be sorta true (for a small number of owners) but they found the answer to that pretty fast (use synthetic oil or increase oil change intervals) and Toyota eventually stepped up and corrected the defects.
In other words, that was a target everyone could hit.
The UA is like a phantom/ghost. It seems to lack any substance at all as soon as you stare at it.
You're the guy who wrote the ECU code and "you don't know"?
And yet you told your bosses that it was ok to implement the code?
Then it's off to the jury. :-)
Meanwhile "The most comprehensive overhaul of motor-vehicle safety laws in a decade, which once seemed certain in the wake of Toyota's sudden-acceleration problems, may never reach a vote in Congress."
Once-certain auto-safety bill faces unsure fate in Congress (Arizona Daiy Star)
See the above comment. That argument will be irrelevant.
You made it....You're responsible for the damages it caused.
End of story.
From the link posted earlier...
In Product Liability cases involving injuries caused by manufactured goods, strict liability has had a major impact on litigation since the 1960s. In 1963, in Greenman v. Yuba Power Products, 59 Cal. 2d 57, 377 P.2d 897, the California Supreme Court became the first court to adopt strict tort liability for defective products. Injured plaintiffs have to prove the product caused the harm but do not have to prove exactly how the manufacturer was careless. Purchasers of the product, as well as injured guests, bystanders, and others with no direct relationship with the product, may sue for damages caused by the product.
Companies would LOVE for it to happen your way. They would simply throw the programmer under the bus and say they were harmed as much as anyone else... Make the programmer pay the damages.
If I can't stop the car because I dropped a Coke can and it rolled under the brake pedal, the company making the car isn't going to be responsible.
But their expert better not say "I don't know" if my lawyer asks her if the car maker ever anticipated objects rolling around on the floor when they designed the floor.
Being in the commercial insurance industry for years, I have seen machinery that was manufactured 35 years ago, changed hands several times, had all of the original guards removed, etc. where the original mfg. was still found liable.
Also cases where the machinery was being used for a purpose for which it was never intended. Like the two guys who were holding up a power lawn mower to trim a hedge..no warning label..mfg. liable.
Insurance companies were part of the problem. They had a tendency to settle these claims out of court rather than risk a sympathetic jury.
Sigh...sometimes I long for the earlier, more dangerous world, where if you did something really really dumb (trimming hedges with a power mower??? pointing the wrong end of your musket at a bear) , you got your head ripped off, and while sympathetic to a degree, most bystanders shook their heads and said: "that was really stupid...".
You're the guy who wrote the ECU code and "you don't know"?
As others here will tell you, unless the ECU code is only a couple of thousand source lines of code (SLOCs), it was not written by one person. Instead, it was probably written by a team of programmers, maybe scattered across the globe in different time zones.
The code was architected by one person (or group of people), designed and coded by another, and then verified by still another group (if they followed an Independent Validation and Verification, or IV&V flow). Throughout the process they probably had independent reviewers present at review meetings, etc, and in the end senior staff probably had to sign off on the design.
So there is unlikely to be a single person that can be put on the stand to verify that they really "know what's in the ECU code".
Same thing has been said of many of the Microsoft products. That's a little different story in that the code base has become so bloated that there are sections of code that no one knows what its purpose is, but they're scared to death to remove it because MS is afraid of breaking something.
And there's yet another level of "code" that might be at fault. The hardware embedded microcode that defines the instruction set for the base microprocessor has been often found at fault.
And, that's exacty why, if it makes it to court, no one will care.
It will be something like...
Toyota made it, and they're liable for any damage caused by their product.
Toyota will show a mountain of test data vindicating their design, and the accusers will show all kinds of evidence demonstrating how Toyota failed in their testing.
The side with the best "silver-tongued-devil" will win the day, regardless of the reality of what happened.
In other words, those who can afford the best justice will get it. :-) Sometimes the little guy will surprise you though. The judge may be a closet Chevy fan.
Well somebody better come up with a shred, or scrap, or morsel, of evidence before they take Toyota to court, because right now it looks like they got nothin'.
What, pray tell, will the paid assassin on the consumer side say to counter the paid assassin on the manufacturer side?
"There s defect in there somewhere, I just KNOW it your honor!"
Well, if its anything like the Audi episode, anyone reading this thread will be dead before the last court cases are decided. Audi suits are still filtering through the courts as I type this.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, class-action lawsuits claimed that Dow Corning's silicone breast implants caused systemic health problems. The claims first centered around breast cancer, and then migrated to a range of autoimmune diseases, including lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and various neurological problems. This led to numerous lawsuits beginning in 1984 and culminating in a 1998 multi-billion dollar class action settlement. As a result, Dow Corning was in bankruptcy protection for nine years, ending in June 2004.
A number of large, independent reviews of the scientific literature, including the U.S. Institute of Medicine, have subsequently found that silicone breast implants do not appear to cause breast cancers or any identifiable systemic disease.
A number of large, independent reviews of the scientific literature, including the U.S. Institute of Medicine, have subsequently found that silicone breast implants do not appear to cause breast cancers or any identifiable systemic disease.
A lot of which is like what some people are saying about mercury, used to preserve vaccines, and autism.
Or a proximity to high voltage power lines and birth defects.
Or about a relationship between cell phone usage and brain tumors.
I don't think it's the same, because there is no conspicuous possibility of human error in breast implants, (on the part of the patient I mean) while there is major conspicuous room for human error in UA.
We are talking about a highly interactive product as opposed to a passive one (presuming a successful implantation, no infection, no botched surgery, etc).
I can't even see a remote possibility of any jury in the world deciding against toyota, at least with the complete lack of evidence we see, or rather don't see.
Unless someone can prove their foot wasn't on the gas, or until someone can replicate the UA on a test vehicle, like I said, they got nothin' IMO.
Comments
"He has no idea what happened, but being a new (and hi-line)car, he thinks surely it must have been a fluke thing."
Nope...no way no how. A normal thinking person is not going to call that a fuke. While on the side of the road, they are going to be on their hands and knees, head under dash confirming something hadn't interfered with the accelerator pedal.
and this:
"Remember, its not his car, and he wants to take care of it (and cause no damage that he has to pay for himself)."
If the loaner car is trying to not respond to MY input (the driver, the one in chg) then all bets are off at that point and I wouldn't care if I repositioned the brake pedal as I pushed it through the floor boards trying to regain control of that car. And so would anyone else.
But getting back to the first stop on the side of the road. If after being on hands and knees and ruled out an obstruction, a more enterprising person (mechanic or mechanical and armed with a good flashlight) might pop the hood and look for an obstruction around the linkage of the throttle body or injection rack. (yes i know it is drive by wire, but most people would NOT) and of course they aren't going to see anything, and at THAT point, the logical thing to due would be to call for assistance. The car was trying to accelerate on its own for goodness sake!! You get it stopped on the side of the road and you are going to risk that scenario all over again?! I don't think so..
There was at least one cell phone in the Saylor car...
My guess is that Saylor would not have pulled back onto the road unless he thought he had found and corrected the causative factor of the first/initial SUA.
Didn't I read that a witness said smoke was seen rising from the front of the car as it was parked on the side of the road with hazards blinking..? If so that would be another indication of severe braking as the smoke would most likely have been coming from the abused brakes.
But yet another reason as to why the brakes couldn't be used satisfactorily the second time.
It does seem highly probable, at least the first time, that the gas pedal got stuck in the floor mat... But what would a sensible person do upon discovered that..? In my case the floor mat quickly became an occupant of the back seat.
Yet the floor mat was seemingly still in the "proper" place post-crash.
And he may have done that... and, found nothing. He may not have understood what happened at all. In fact, I suspect that is exacly what happened.
But I can tell you from many personal experiences that people can, and will, recover from doing a really stupid thing, and then go back and do exactly the same thing.
But, we're only opining here, so my scenario (like wwest's) is entirely possible.
Personally, I think mine is the more likely of the 2, just as wwest feels his is as well.
Again, you are injecting what you think YOUR behavior would be onto someone you have never met.
I have been in driving schools at BMW an seen drivers claim they had the brakes floored, and it was crystal clear they weren't. Its an actual ABS demo done there.
I think what happened with the brakes is that Saylor stomped on them. When they didn't slow the Lexus he tried again. And perhaps again. It sounds like that SUV had vacuum-based power assist brakes, so after a couple of pumps, the brakes would lose the power assist and be much harder to apply.
Good point, and harder still because with the engine revving, vacuum would become an even greater premium.
I have found that ever since ABS, with engine off and no vacuum left, the brakes seem harder to apply than pre-ABS. Maybe ESC is part of the equation too, trying to recall. My CRV loses vacuum overnight it seems, and to go down a hill without the engine running I can barely stop it at the bottom of my drive. It is unbelievable. I discovered as I was working at the bottom of the drive and had no reason to start the engine....or so i thought. It was hairy..I almost started it near the bottom but realized i was going to be able to stop. And the useless parking brake on rear discs...the useless things that they are...I cudda sworn they just laughed at me when i tried them.
I wonder if I have problem with my brakes? When I watched that video of the Camry test braking I know for a fact my CRV would add a couple HUNDRED feet in that test, not just 30 or so.
60MPH. Sequential shifting transaxle locked into 6th gear....?
How was the engine made to go, remain, WOT...??
It wouldn't have to be fancy, even a stick cut to length jammed against the seat would do it. Or someone in the back seat with a stick leaning over and keeping throttle pinned. That would be the easiest.
This person must know who they are these days, shant they? :sick:
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
The problem is that with stability control, ABS, and On-Star's ability to override throttle and brake systems all added to the mix, such a simple and direct override wouldn't be likely. In fact, since the systems directly control the brakes at each wheel, that points to it all being interpreted and controlled by software. As I've said before. Essentially a video game on wheels.
For a good example of this, consider cars with malfunctioning ABS systems that have their brakes stop working entirely.
http://www.safetyresearch.net/2010/11/02/the-corrections/
This was just posted and is interesting reading. Toyota evidently reads this forum every day and is more than a little worried about them.
It's the smart company that goes pro-active IMO. Being accused of some safety defect in your cars is like being accused personally of some heinous crime by your neighbors. You'd better speak up or fess' up, or live with the consequences.
Agree in full.
The problem can, however, be akin to being called a child molester. One the accusation has been made, there are some who will forever onwards believe its true, even when no shred of evidence has ever been presented.
It will be Audi-Redux....
Besides, people believe what they want to. In spite of on-site demonstrations of how crop circles are built, there are many thousands of people who still believe they were built by aliens.
I don't see how Toyota can "prove" their cars blameless---the only thing they can do is wait out the issue until the doubters are exhausted from looking.
The cause will be fixed with no one outside the group being the wiser since paying the "cost" for the relatively few injuries or even deaths will be less than the public opinion cost due to full disclosure.
Agreed.
In Japan company employees are a part of a tightly knit family.
It was maybe years later that I inadvertently discovered that one aspect of the Climate control did not operate as before, when new. I took it in to Lexus of Bellevue and they were kind enough to verify in writing that my LS400 climate operation do not match the factory specifications. They were so confounded at this that they checked several other '92 LS400's on the lot to be sure they operated as specified.
What had actually happened, seemingly, was that my climate control had been reprogammed in order to eliminate the propensity to suddenly and totally, unexpectedly, fog over the inside of the windshield in certain climate change conditions.
I have little doubt that not a few accidents occurred with owners of '92 LS400's. But much like the number of SUA incidents Toyota chose a cover-up rather than an admission.
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
Oh, I don’t know about that. The thing with conspiracy theories is that they all have a built-it escape hatch. It’s the nature of the beast.
If the “crime” is discovered, they win. Obviously, they were right all along.
On the other hand, if nothing is ever discovered, it is because it is still secret and we just haven’t been informed yet.
Pearl Harbor is a great example. Roswell is another. 9/11 is becoming one as well.
That’s why conspiracy theories stick around FOREVER.
It would be ironic, but it's more possible that Toyota could be hiding not what it does know, but hiding the fact that it doesn't know (which is embarrassing).
Remember the big "oil gel" flap? That turned out to be sorta true (for a small number of owners) but they found the answer to that pretty fast (use synthetic oil or increase oil change intervals) and Toyota eventually stepped up and corrected the defects.
In other words, that was a target everyone could hit.
The UA is like a phantom/ghost. It seems to lack any substance at all as soon as you stare at it.
Once, I asked him what answer he least wanted to hear from one giving testimony.
His response “I don’t know”.
Impossible to argue...
And yet you told your bosses that it was ok to implement the code?
Then it's off to the jury. :-)
Meanwhile "The most comprehensive overhaul of motor-vehicle safety laws in a decade, which once seemed certain in the wake of Toyota's sudden-acceleration problems, may never reach a vote in Congress."
Once-certain auto-safety bill faces unsure fate in Congress (Arizona Daiy Star)
These cases are usually decided under the rule of Strict Liability, not Tort liability.
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Strict+Liability
That's because Tort liability was so difficult to prove, if at all possible.
A. I don't know.
That's not going to impress the judge and jury too much.
Or there's always the "What are your parameters?" reply. So to speak. :shades:
You made it....You're responsible for the damages it caused.
End of story.
From the link posted earlier...
In Product Liability cases involving injuries caused by manufactured goods, strict liability has had a major impact on litigation since the 1960s. In 1963, in Greenman v. Yuba Power Products, 59 Cal. 2d 57, 377 P.2d 897, the California Supreme Court became the first court to adopt strict tort liability for defective products. Injured plaintiffs have to prove the product caused the harm but do not have to prove exactly how the manufacturer was careless. Purchasers of the product, as well as injured guests, bystanders, and others with no direct relationship with the product, may sue for damages caused by the product.
Companies would LOVE for it to happen your way. They would simply throw the programmer under the bus and say they were harmed as much as anyone else... Make the programmer pay the damages.
BTW- Loved your link!
But their expert better not say "I don't know" if my lawyer asks her if the car maker ever anticipated objects rolling around on the floor when they designed the floor.
But I don't know.
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
Also cases where the machinery was being used for a purpose for which it was never intended. Like the two guys who were holding up a power lawn mower to trim a hedge..no warning label..mfg. liable.
Insurance companies were part of the problem. They had a tendency to settle these claims out of court rather than risk a sympathetic jury.
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
As others here will tell you, unless the ECU code is only a couple of thousand source lines of code (SLOCs), it was not written by one person. Instead, it was probably written by a team of programmers, maybe scattered across the globe in different time zones.
The code was architected by one person (or group of people), designed and coded by another, and then verified by still another group (if they followed an Independent Validation and Verification, or IV&V flow). Throughout the process they probably had independent reviewers present at review meetings, etc, and in the end senior staff probably had to sign off on the design.
So there is unlikely to be a single person that can be put on the stand to verify that they really "know what's in the ECU code".
Same thing has been said of many of the Microsoft products. That's a little different story in that the code base has become so bloated that there are sections of code that no one knows what its purpose is, but they're scared to death to remove it because MS is afraid of breaking something.
It will be something like...
Toyota made it, and they're liable for any damage caused by their product.
Toyota will show a mountain of test data vindicating their design, and the accusers will show all kinds of evidence demonstrating how Toyota failed in their testing.
The side with the best "silver-tongued-devil" will win the day, regardless of the reality of what happened.
What, pray tell, will the paid assassin on the consumer side say to counter the paid assassin on the manufacturer side?
"There s defect in there somewhere, I just KNOW it your honor!"
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dow_Corning_breast_implants_controversy#Breast_Impl- ants_Controversy
From the link...
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, class-action lawsuits claimed that Dow Corning's silicone breast implants caused systemic health problems. The claims first centered around breast cancer, and then migrated to a range of autoimmune diseases, including lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and various neurological problems. This led to numerous lawsuits beginning in 1984 and culminating in a 1998 multi-billion dollar class action settlement. As a result, Dow Corning was in bankruptcy protection for nine years, ending in June 2004.
A number of large, independent reviews of the scientific literature, including the U.S. Institute of Medicine, have subsequently found that silicone breast implants do not appear to cause breast cancers or any identifiable systemic disease.
A lot of which is like what some people are saying about mercury, used to preserve vaccines, and autism.
Or a proximity to high voltage power lines and birth defects.
Or about a relationship between cell phone usage and brain tumors.
We are talking about a highly interactive product as opposed to a passive one (presuming a successful implantation, no infection, no botched surgery, etc).
I can't even see a remote possibility of any jury in the world deciding against toyota, at least with the complete lack of evidence we see, or rather don't see.
Unless someone can prove their foot wasn't on the gas, or until someone can replicate the UA on a test vehicle, like I said, they got nothin' IMO.
Yeah, I heard the big Audi "lost value" suit was back before a court down in Chicago, but I haven't read anything about it for a while.
Don't forget that while authorities in the US, Japan and Canada said the Audi problem was driver error, the Swedes blamed it on the cruise control.
In any event, a bunch of Audi 5000's were recalled due to the, er, problem. (Business Week)