The currently recalled about 9 million cars cover the models of only about 30% of the total complaints that Toyota has received on unintended acceleration. The remaining 70% have not been recalled yet.

Among the over 2000 vehicles that were reported by drivers of sudden accelerations, Toyota labs examined none of them.

After a new electronic throttle was put in production in 2004, Toyota saw a 400% increase in unintended acceleration, but blamed floor mats for it.

The Event Data Recorder (black box) on Toyota is proprietary and can not be read outside of Japan. This prevented crash data collected 5 seconds prior and 1 second after an accident from being released without Toyota\'s control. US car makers have made EDR info available via commercially available scanners.

The chief of Toyota USA is a head sales position, and he has no authority to initiate a recall. Major decisions are made in Japan on design, quality and safety.

First recall of sudden acceleration happened in UK in 2000, second in Canada in 2003. But Toyota failed to inform the US government about those recalls until recently.

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Interesting change during the past 40 years…

In the 1980’s, Toyota service department would send a technician to a customer’s home to repair a car.
In the 1990’s, Toyota would fix problems for future cars, but not issue necessary recalls for cars on the road.
In the 2000’s, you are observing the beginning of an episode that may dwarf all auto recalls in history.