Auto safety experts question makeup of panels studying runaway vehicles

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Washington Post

By Kimberly Kindy

Auto safety experts are criticizing the makeup of two advisory panels that are charged with determining the role of electronics in the sudden unintended acceleration of vehicles.

There are no electronics experts on Toyota Motor Corp.'s seven-member panel and just three on the National Academies of Science's 12-member panel.

"We are very concerned. The outcome and recommendations from these committees will be shaped by who serves on them," said Joan Claybrook, former head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and president emeritus of Public Citizen, the consumer advocacy group. "There is a real absence of engineering expertise, particularly in this area of electronics."

The panels were created in response to congressional hearings this spring, where lawmakers sought information about why runaway vehicles were on the rise and about the federal government's failure to address the problem. So far, 93 people have died in collisions involving the reported sudden unintended acceleration of Toyota vehicles, according to NHTSA data. More than 8 million of the manufacturer's vehicles have been recalled.


Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/20/AR2010072004272.html

[benld74]

1. NHTSA DO YOUR EFFIN JOB!!!!!

[Lance_Boyle]

2. NHTSA did their job, and found that driver error was to blame, not Toyota.

The two panels mentioned in TFA are not NHTSA panels.