ABC altered evidence against Toyota on recalls? Not even the half of it
Purely seeking drama for ratings?After days of questions about whether ABC altered evidence in an important report the TV station ran on the Toyota 'unintended acceleration' recalls, and seized upon by Congress, were 'doctored', finally an answer. Turns out the automaker used fake footage to dramatize their story, as Gawker.com states was used to "make it look scarier."(tip via KickingTires)
But faked drama isn't even the real story today. Before Congress experts questioned the entire premise put forth by David W. Gilbert, an automotive technology professor at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale and ABC's key expert.
Chris Gerdes, director of Stanford University's Center for Automotive Research, and a consulting firm, Exponent Inc., "said the professor had tampered with wiring to create electronic glitches that could never occur on the road."
Likewise, the same tampering could achieve the same effects in many other cars, and was achieved using both the Subaru Outback and the Ford Fusion.
posted by Dahcredyns at
1:19 PM
6 Comments:
Toyota and others knew they were having issues and attempted to hide it. All Car Companies should have came forward with a full disclosures of what car were dangerous. Instead of waiting for a huge media blitz and tons of public pressure. I never seen so many car companies GM - NISSAN - TOYOTA - HYUNDAI having recalls all at the same time. I had no idea my car was affected until I looked on http://www.carpedalrecall.com and found I had a bad Anti Lock control unit on my 2008 Pontiac G8 , my co workers Ford Truck had a recall also. So be careful
While ABC may have reported on a situation which may not be possible under regular circumstances, at the same time Toyota was showing that the acceleration problem was a fake in a staged press report, another Toyota Prius in California was experiencing a "runaway" problem! The driver couldn't even manually pull the accelerator up with his hand! Remember, there is no mechanical linkage in these pedals to "catch upon" anything. Had the State Trooper not assisted in slowing that vehicle down with his own, we might be hearing of another death in a "runaway" Toyota. There is definitely something wrong with the electronics in these Toyotas, and whether Toyota is trying to cover it up (to avoid millions of dollars in payments) or that they just don't know what is causing it, the fact remains, they are having serious problems with some of their vehicles. It is such a shame too, since they have pioneered such great hybrid technologies.
Definitely ironic, no doubt. Still, that doesn't justify ABC's actions in my opinion.
I'm just calling for objectivity and honesty. That's all. Moreover, I wish Toyotagate would lead to a bigger conversation on automotive safety that included SUV rollover, for instance.
All the coverups and beancounting associated with Toyotagate are NOTHING compared to several decades long SUV rollover scandal.
lol, you people believe anything the media feeds you. You all talk and talk, and now the media is saying ohhhh look, he has outstanding debts and oh MMYYYY he could stand and try to capitalize on the publicity. There are no concerns besides human error and stupidty
Indigo Incarnates
that reminds me of the "news" story a decade ago when some "reporters" rigged up a Ford pickup to catch on fire and then exclaimed "Fords are dangerous because they catch on fire!". Of course any car will catch on fire if you set it on fire. Any car will gave trouble stopping if you cut the brakes.
What would we do without such media antics, though, Indigo? Life would just be so boring I guess.
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