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From: Brent on 15 Jul 2010 12:51
On 2010-07-15, C. E. White <cewhite3(a)mindspring.com> wrote:

> Apparently incompetenet and stupid U.S. Citizens are attrated to Toyotas.
> Otherwise why were there so many complaints of sudden accelertions realted
> to Toyota products sent to NHTSA back in 2005 (well before all the
> publicity)? And why are there so few sudden acceleration complaints logged
> against GM products? Surely incompetenet and stupid U.S. Citizens puchase GM
> products. As far as I can tell, Buick is still the choice of the older
> generation (well either that or an Avalon).

If you're looking for a reason, Japan's engineering culture (like
that of the Germans) isn't one that that traditionally panders to the
incompetent. GM, being an american company, would have an engineering
culture that panders to the incompetent thanks to their legal
department. Basically the incompetent are safer in a GM product than one
imported from Japan.

The Corvair is a good example of how GM was taught to make it's products
such that they were safe for the incompetent. The Corvair's handling was
not all that different than other cars of that layout of that era.
Perhaps a bit behind the learning curve of other makes, but it was GM's
first. In any case the car handled differently than what people were
used to and it was the car that was considered 'unsafe' rather than the
drivers' failure to realize they weren't driving the same old rear drive
front engine chevy any more. GM learned not to 'confuse' american car
buyers this way again.

Also keep in mind that GM etc have been losing market share to Toyota.
So those who had been buying Buicks suddenly buy a Toyota. They go to
drive the toyota the way they drove their buicks and errors are made
because of closer pedal placement or other things that aren't wrong but
simply different.

Not to say there isn't a software problem or other issue in the toyotas
of course, just reasoning for why it could be in absence of one.

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