Toyota Disaster Demands Greater Regulation

I drive a 2007 Toyota Prius. Got 60,000 miles on it. I like the car. The mileage is phenomenal, and it drives smoothly, though when it’s going up hill, I almost need to put my feet through the floor and peddle like Fred Flintstone since it slows down so much.

I’ve had few other complaints, though. A couple times, it seemed to want to gallop away on its own accord, but that was just for a split second or two, so I didn’t think much of it until I heard about all the accidents.

I yanked my floor mat out as soon as I got the notice. But my model hasn’t been recalled. At least not yet.

Still, I’m beginning to wonder whether I’m a fool to keep driving it.

I’ve got no faith in Toyota. And even worse, I’ve got no faith in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Not because I don’t believe in regulation. I do. But because there isn’t enough regulation.

Clarence Ditlow, the executive director of Ralph Nader’s Center for Auto Safety, testified before Congress on March 2 about the causes of the Toyota disaster, which is responsible for the deaths of at least 56 people.

Here’s his summary: “Draconian cuts in NHTSA’s enforcement budget and staffing, failure to follow up on early research into electronic controls and adopting safety standards based on the research, lax enforcement, flawed research on electronic controls, manufacturers exploiting weaknesses in NHTSA’s regulatory programs, inadequate crash data collection programs, and failures to implement the Early Warning Reporting System mandated [by law] all played significant roles.”

These “draconian cuts” began in 1980, the year Ronald Reagan and his anti-regulation wrecking crew came to Washington. Today, there are 75% more vehicles on the road than there were in 1980, but the number of people doing enforcement at the agency has gone down by 50%, according to Ditlow’s testimony. “In 1980, there were 119 people in enforcement,” he said. “Today, there are only 57,” who have the responsibility of ensuring the safety of the 256 million cars that are on the road.

The agency doesn’t even have its own test facility, Ditlow said. It actually has to “rent space from Honda.”

“Any way one looks at it, the agency is underfunded,” he said. “In terms of safety, the best way to look at it is motor vehicles are responsible for 95 percent of the nation’s transportation deaths but only 1 percent of the Transportation budget.”

This is by design. Republicans, libertarians, and the corporations they front for want to keep it that way. Their creed is the less regulation, the better. The 56 people who have died as a result of Toyota’s defect have paid the price for that creed.

The underfunding of the traffic safety agency is no accident—but it is fatal.

Matthew Rothschild is the editor of The Progressive magazine. To subscribe for just $14.97 a year, just click here.