Sudden Acceleration Syndrome: Toyotas in 2010, Audis in 1980s

In the 80s, instead of Killer Toyotas, you had Killer Audis

The USA has seen an outbreak of Sudden Acceleration Syndrome before: in the 1980s, it was Audis that were suddenly “out-of-control.” After much government study, it was determined that, like Toyota, drivers were stepping on the gas instead of the brake. But in 2010, the Government owns Toyota’s competitor, so there’s shenanigans afoot over a fed report clearing Toyota.

TOYOTA NOT FIRST CAR COMPANY TO RIDE THE “SUDDEN ACCELERATION SYNDROME” ROLLER COASTER

The more things change…

IBD reminds readers that 30 years ago, another outbreak of “Sudden Acceleration Syndrome” struck Americans, only it was Audis instead of Toyotas that supposedly were out-of-control.

From Sudden Exaggeration:

In the mid-1980s, the Audi 5000 was known as a killing machine.

“Moms in runaway Audi 5000s were mowing down their little kids in the driveway and pinning granny against the far garage wall,” Paul Niedermeyer, managing editor of The Truth About Cars blog, colorfully recalled three years ago.

But, as Niedermeyer noted, the German automaker was cleared.

The same NHTSA that appears to be uncovering the real cause of Toyota’s problem found that Audi 5000 drivers were pressing the gas instead of the brake.

In fact, one of the funniest bits in P.J. O’Rourke’s Parliament of Whores (the funniest civics book ever) dealt with the 1980s version of Sudden Acceleration Syndrome.”

One reviewer notes:

In what I think is the best chapter in the book, “Protectors of a Blameless Citizenry,” O’Rourke tracks a terrific example of this : the demand for government investigation of sudden-acceleration incidents (SAIs). If you recall the hysteria, this was the allegation that some vehicles, when you were just parked innocently in your garage, would suddenly lurch forward into a garage wall. Any objective observer could have taken one look at these SAIs and figured out that they were merely episodes where people shifted into Drive without their foot on the brake, or stepped on the gas pedal instead of the brake. But to draw such a conclusion would have meant blaming people, blaming taxpayers, blaming voters, for their own carelessness and stupidity, and that would be intolerable. Instead, it has become the particular duty of government to absolve us of blame for such manifestations of our own ineptitude, recklessness, and stupidity.

The Toyota dust-up was more of the same–only this time, throw in the hilarity of the Federal Government OWNING a competitor of Toyota. Gotta protect their investment, doncha know?

Which is why there’s news of a “new report in the WSJ quotes a retiring NHTSA official as saying higher-ups are refusing to release the results of the agency’s staff investigation into charges of Toyota sudden acceleration, because those findings are not unfavorable enough toward the automaker.”

30 years or so ago, government didn’t want to make Americans look like dumbasses for hitting the gas instead of the brake while driving Audis. But that’s what the government finally reported.

In 2010, the government doesn’t want to let a competitor of the Government Motors off the hook without trying to ratchet up market share for GM and Chrysler a bit.

Same as it ever was.

by Mondo Frazier
image: wsj

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