Filed under: Government/Legal, Recalls, Safety, Toyota



Hypocrisy is again the order of the day as Congress continues to look into the actions of Toyota following a report earlier this year claiming that a fault had been found that could trigger unintended acceleration. Using polling data to help craft a message to manipulate public opinion is standard political procedure, so it should come as no surprise to anyone in on Capitol Hill that Toyota would consider doing the same thing.

When Southern Illinois University professor David Gilbert purported to demonstrate how unintended acceleration could happen in Toyotas, he and Sean Kane went before Congress to testify about their findings. Toyota investigated Gilbert's test procedure and then later proceeded to debunk it. However, it also hired pollster Joel Benenson to gather data that could potentially be used to discredit Kane and Gilbert, possibly via an ad campaign.

No such campaign has been initiated to date, but it certainly seems disingenuous on the part of anyone in Congress to criticize Toyota for doing what it can to defend its reputation. If Gilbert and Kane had motives that went beyond simply finding the truth behind what was happening with these vehicles, then Toyota surely had a right to expose them. Likewise, if Toyota is hiding information, Gilbert, Congress, or anyone else has the same right to seek and reveal the truth.

[Source: The Washington Post]Report: Toyota had 'attack plan' to discredit congressional testimony witnesses originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 16 May 2010 20:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.



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