Page 343 - Acceleration News Today

Contacts and access with their former colleagues. former regulatesors who used to work for the highway safety agency now work for toyota. and in their new job, they try to influence government policy for toyota. in fact, some have reportedly been defending the company from the same highway safety agency. toyota has said the mens actions have been consistent with our efforts to maintain the highest professional and ethical standards. but that brings us to sutd enacceleration. a confidential toyot...

Today. lawmakers grilling the president of toyota tomorrow. dealers have been installing new parts on millions of recalled vehicles. still today on the hill, expert witnesses cast doubts on those repairs, doubt that drew griffin first exposed weeks ago, and hes keeping them honest tonight. >> reporter: he is toyotas top salesman in the u.s., and james lentz in testimony and under questioning stuck to the pitch. toyotas unintended acceleration problems are not electronic problems. >> we design ou...

Their money and spend it wiser, and that -- i want them to be able to ensure increased quality control and try to start doing a better job with our cars and to quit lying to the public teen admit their sins and to try to correct the problems that they have out on the roads today, to make it safer for people in the future, and to try to do something for all those people in the past who have been injured. and to admit what they have done wrong in the past and to also admit that there is a problem ...

The headline from todays congressional hearing is frightening. toyota doesnt really know what is wrong with its cars or how to fix them. but there have been strong suspicions that the problem causing some cars to speed out of control is a problem with electronics. now, for weeks toyota has denied this. drew griffin right now has our special investigation. take a look. >> reporter: he is toyotas top salesman in the u.s., and james lentz in testimony and under questioning stuck to the pitch. toyot...

Toyota? >> wolf, what i have said in answer to that kind of a question is, we will not rest until every toyota is safe. we are going to work 24/7 to make that happen. that is our obligations to the driving public. it is something that we have insist on and we wont rest until every toyota is safe. >> in the meantime, is it safe to drive a toyota? >> if your car is listed on the website, take it to the toyota dealer. if you are experiencing problems, take it to the dealer and have them fix it. >> ...

>> toyota employed in 2009 more than 30 federal lobbyists. and who are these lobbyists? well, some of them are former members of congress, former high-ranking congressional staffers. its like a sports team. you want to get the best players to play on your team so you can win at the end of the day. >> reporter: in other words, they go directly from setting policy about companies into lobbying for them. theyre coveted because of their contacts and access to former colleagues. in their new jobs the...

Respect? >> reporter: its a great question. i can bet that lawmakers will be hammering home on this one, asking the toyota president today all about it. but lets go back to a recall that we all know about, the ford firestone recall. it was the tread on the tires, they separated and caused explosions, rollovers, more than 100 deaths are linked. heres the timeline on that one. bridgestone-firestone started getting a number of complaints back in 1996. thats according to nhtsa. the investigation was...

To save the school? we dig deeper. our week long focus on broken government. the big gamble some states are taking to close their budget deficits. they are betting on casinos. first this hour time for mr. toyoda, the namesake of the car company to talk. in just a few hours the top man will face a grilling on capitol hill. were almost assured that there will be fireworks. yesterday his chief of sales in the united states was grilled about whether the fix for 8 million recalled vehicles is rea...

Oversight committee suggests that same office saved toyota $100 million plus by negotiating a limited recall over complaints about sudden acceleration in their vehicles with the government finding no defect in its cars. >> what was the role of ntsa, and did they take this investigation seriously? did they make a deal with toyota that limited a tough and thorough investigation? >> during the hearings today, there were a lot of tough questions. are you suggesting these members were actually pullin...

The sudden unintended acceleration of these toyota automobiles. toyota looked at blaming the drivers, blaming the floormats, blaming a sticky pedal, and they just didnt even look at the obvious thing of the electronics in this new sophistication thats in almost all the new cars. they do a lot of good but should be watched very carefully to be sure its not leading to unsafe situations. >> you just pointed out how they were seemingly redirecting blame to all these other areas. do you think they we...