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As early leaked reports indicated, Toyota is being exonerated after Congress pushed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to reveal the preliminary findings of its investigation into the cases of "unintended acceleration" of Toyota vehicles.

A Department of Transportation investigation of the black box recorders in 58 Toyota vehicles involved in "unintended acceleration" crashes has revealed that in 35 of those cases the brakes were never engaged. In nine other cases the brakes were only applied immediately before impact. In five additional cases no data was recorded, while in five more it was shown that the brakes were applied early on. One incident showed that both the accelerator and brake were pressed.

Toyota did place a recall for a faulty mechanical brake pedal and for millions of vehicles with what could be improperly installed floor mats – the later which is believed to be a cause of the crash in at least one of the 58 vehicles investigated by NHTSA.

"The limited research completed so far has not led to identification of safety defects other than sticking gas pedals or pedal entrapment," reads the report, clearly indicating that faulty vehicle electronics are not to blame.

Results of the NHTSA investigation are not final and the government agency warns that it may still take months to look over all the vehicles in question.

More: Driver Error to Blame in Most of Toyota's "Unintended Acceleration" Cases: Report (http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2010/08/driver-error-to-blame-in-most-of-toyotas-unintended-acceleration-cases-report.html) on AutoGuide.com

Black boxes? Does this mean that every Toyota, or other vehicle for that matter, has some kind of data recorder in it keeping track of our actions and speed? What else is being monitored without our consent or knowledge?

That is good news though; now maybe the dealer will leave me alone and stop trying to get me to shave my gas pedal and the other BS that went along with the bologna recall.

Throttle position, brake or no brake, and anything else the ecu can record.

Throttle position, brake or no brake, and anything else the ecu can record.

I read in another WSJ article Toyota remarked that this information is recorded only a few seconds before and after a crash. And it's logging is supposed to be used only by Toyota for evaluating effectiveness of its safety features. Don't ask me how it knows to record "before" a crash occurs, because that wasn't explained. I can only assume it means from the moment of impact...

It's about freaking time people realized this was BS! Now is the government going to give Toyota their money back for lost sales, etc.?... It upsets me that Toyota has earned a bad reputation through all of this when it wasn't their fault.

Alot of people sat in those congressional hearings hearings and did ALOT of preaching and grandstanding without knowing all the facts. But they will just quietly melt into the background now and have nothing more to say on the matter. The company's CEO was made to sit before them with head hung low and apologize for what now appears to BS.

The media benefited from it. Politicians benefit from it. To the rest of the world we look like litigation-happy idiots who want to blame others for the fact that we don't know how to drive cars properly. It's OK, just as this is dying down we're approaching the 'DEADLY VIRAL OUTBREAK OF THE CENTURY' season. Where whatever current mutation of the flu pops up this year will become the new bubonic plague and the media can get their ratings bump from that and live off it for the next several months until the next fake product safety crisis appears on the horizon.

Nobody was ever interested in TRUTH, they only wanted to hold your attention for a bit. As always.

Maybe the House Ethics Committee will investigate the false claims and throw some accusations back at NHTSA and the others who lied under oath.

Or maybe they won't because no one, especially the lawyers who benefited immensely, wants to hear the facts and "it's better if we put this all behind us [quietly]."

...a few seconds before and after a crash. And it's logging is supposed to be used only by Toyota for evaluating effectiveness of its safety features. Don't ask me how it knows to record "before" a crash occurs, because that wasn't explained. I can only assume it means from the moment of impact...This information is also available to traffic-crash Investigators through a search warrant, generally used while investigating serious/fatal crashes. The way I understand it (if I remember correctly), it is always recording & recycling the data, but once the sensors indicate a collision took place, it retains the most recent data leading up to the collision.

Why am i not surprised by the tittle of this article? haha

Actually, it's pretty easy to make a record of the time immediately before,during, and after a crash. Consider a recorder with capacity to store the most recent 2 minutes of all ECU data readings and events. New data always over-writes the oldest data. When a crash occurs (which can probably be detected pretty conclusively), recording continues for a maximium of 1 minute. Now you have a data record of one minute preceding and one minute following a crash.

I have no idea how much data can be kept but I can't imagine it's even 2 minutes... probably more like 20 seconds or so. But whatever the buffer capacity might be, the logic described above is a pretty simple program.

This information is also available to traffic-crash Investigators through a search warrant, generally used while investigating serious/fatal crashes. The way I understand it (if I remember correctly), it is always recording & recycling the data, but once the sensors indicate a collision took place, it retains the most recent data leading up to the collision.

The deployment of the airbags is the indicator of a collision. So this logic makes perfect sense. Continuous recording and repeat until airbags deploy, then record an additional XX seconds and stop.

Why doesn't this surprise me?? Like everyone else this is bs. I hope they hold the people that lied about unintended acceleration accountable.

im glad all this bs happend,it boosted our sales by 40%.now what happens when you pi$$ off the number 1 manufacture?they come back even better then they were before!!!!so in other words,chevy,and dodge "goverment motors" just put another nail in there coffin!!!those idiots still dont get the point,they need to leave toyota alone,before toyota puts them outta bussiness!!!!!

It was all about money. Toyota took a small hit and govt motors and govt motors II (chrysler) did well for a bit .

Now back to our regular scheduled program.

Personally, I think the Government did this without full investigation to boost sales of the Mopar and Govt Motors when Clunkers for Cash didn't boost sales. Crawl around a Toyota and then do the same with the "other two". My money's on Toyota!!

You can't hide "quality". :tu: